Luke 14

¹ Now it happened that on a Sabbath day he had gone to share a meal in the house of one of theleading Pharisees; and they watched him closely.

² Now there in front of him was a man with dropsy,

³ and Jesus addressed the lawyers and Pharisees with the words, 'Is it against the law to cure someoneon the Sabbath, or not?'

⁴ But they remained silent, so he took the man and cured him and sent him away.

⁵ Then he said to them, 'Which of you here, if his son fal s into a wel , or his ox, wil not pul him out on aSabbath day without any hesitation?'

⁶ And to this they could find no answer.

⁷ He then told the guests a parable, because he had noticed how they picked the places of honour. Hesaid this,

⁸ 'When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honour. A moredistinguished person than you may have been invited,

⁹ and the person who invited you both may come and say, "Give up your place to this man." And then, toyour embarrassment, you wil have to go and take the lowest place.

¹⁰ No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your hostcomes, he may say, "My friend, move up higher." Then, everyone with you at the table wil see you honoured.

¹¹ For everyone who raises himself up wil be humbled, and the one who humbles himself wil be raisedup.'

¹² Then he said to his host, 'When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or yourbrothers or your relations or rich neighbours, in case they invite you back and so repay you.

¹³ No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;

¹⁴ then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you wil be repaid when theupright rise again.'

¹⁵ On hearing this, one of those gathered round the table said to him, 'Blessed is anyone who wil sharethe meal in the kingdom of God!'

¹⁶ But he said to him, 'There was a man who gave a great banquet, and he invited a large number ofpeople.

¹⁷ When the time for the banquet came, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited,"Come along: everything is ready now."

¹⁸ But al alike started to make excuses. The first said, "I have bought a piece of land and must go andsee it. Please accept my apologies."

¹⁹ Another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen and am on my way to try them out. Please accept myapologies."

²⁰ Yet another said, "I have just got married and so am unable to come."

²¹ 'The servant returned and reported this to his master. Then the householder, in a rage, said to hisservant, "Go out quickly into the streets and al eys of the town and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the blindand the lame."

²² "Sir," said the servant, "your orders have been carried out and there is still room."

²³ Then the master said to his servant, "Go to the open roads and the hedgerows and press people tocome in, to make sure my house is ful ;

²⁴ because, I tel you, not one of those who were invited shal have a taste of my banquet." '

²⁵ Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them.

²⁶ 'Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and hisown life too, cannot be my disciple.

²⁷ No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple.

²⁸ 'And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out thecost to see if he had enough to complete it?

²⁹ Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying,

³⁰ "Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish."

³¹ Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and considerwhether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twentythousand?

³² If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace.

³³ So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple without giving up al that he owns.

³⁴ 'Salt is a good thing. But if salt itself loses its taste, what can make it salty again?

³⁵ It is good for neither soil nor manure heap. People throw it away. Anyone who has ears for listeningshould listen!'