A TAX COLLECTOR — more exactly a toll-farmer: not a salaried official but a man who bought the right to collect a levy and kept whatever he could raise above his bid. That is why the word is a byword in the Gospels and why it is paired, again and again, with 'sinners' (Mark 2:15-16) — the objection is occupational, not merely moral. ⚠ They collected for Rome, or for Herod, at customs posts on roads and lake crossings; the telōnion of Mark 2:14 is the booth itself. This translation keeps 'tax collector' rather than the KJV's 'publican', which now suggests an innkeeper and in 1611 meant a farmer of public revenue — a false friend that has quietly cost the word its sting. → first discussed at Mark 2:14