Jesus dines in a Pharisee’s house
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📚And it happened when he went into the house of one of the leading Pharisees✭ to eat bread on the Sabbath✭, that they watched him closely. 2 ✭And there in front of him was a certain man who had dropsy. 3 📚✭And Jesus responded and spoke to the lawyers✭ and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” 4 📚And they kept quiet. And he took him, healed him, and let him go, 5 📚and responded to them, saying, “Which of you who has a donkey or an ox fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” 6 📚And they could not give him an answer to these things. 7 📚And he told a parable to those who had been invited, when he observed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them,
8 📚“When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit in the place of honour, for perhaps a man more distinguished than you has been invited by him, 9 📚and the one who invited you and him will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your place’, and you, humiliated, have to take the lowest place. 10 📚But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will have honour in the presence of those who sit to eat with you. 11 📚✭For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
12 📚✭Then he said to the one who invited him, “When you give a dinner or supper, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives or rich neighbours, for they may invite you in return, and so you will be repaid. 13 📚But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 📚and you will be blessed, for, because they cannot repay you, you will be repaid✭ at the resurrection of the righteous”.✭
15 📚And when one of those who were sitting with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is he who will eat bread✭ in the kingdom of God✭!”
The parable of the great feast
16 📚Then he said to him, “A certain man✭ gave a great supper, and invited many. 17 📚✭And he sent his servant at supper time to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’
18 📚✭“And they all with one mind began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I need to go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20 📚And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and so I can’t come.’
21 📚✭“So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.’ 22 📚And the servant said, ‘Master, it has been done as you commanded, and still there is room.’
23 📚✭And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedgerows, and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 📚✭For I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper.’ ”
Jesus reveals qualifications for discipleship
25 📚✭And great crowds were going along with him. And he turned around and said to them, 26 📚✭“If anyone comes to me, and does not hate✭ his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life✭ also, he cannot be my disciple.✭ 27 📚And whoever does not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 📚✭“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first, and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it? 29 Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will begin to make fun of him, 30 📚saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 📚✭“Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to meet the one who is coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 📚Otherwise, while the other is still a long way off, he will send a delegation and ask for terms of peace.