Luke
After this the lord appointed seventy others, and sent them ahead in pairs
to every town and place that he intended to visit.
“The harvest is abundant,
but the workers are few,” he said to them. “So pray to the Lord of the harvest
to send out workers into His harvest fields.
Now go — I am sending you like
sheep among wolves.
Do not take a money belt or bag or extra shoes, and do
not stop to talk with people on the way.
When you enter a house, first say,
‘Peace to this house.’
If a person of peace is living there, your peace will rest
on them; if not, it will come back to you.
Stay in the same house, eating and
drinking whatever they give you, as workers deserve their pay. Do not go
from house to house.
Whatever town you enter, if the people there welcome
you, eat what is set before you.
Heal the sick people there and say to them,
‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’
But whatever town you enter, if the people do not welcome you, go into their streets and tell them,
‘We are wiping off against you even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet. Yet be sure of this: The Kingdom of God has come near.’
I tell you, it
will be better in the Day of Judgment for Sodom than for that town.
“Shame on you, Chorazin! Shame on you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that
happened in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented a long time ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
That is why it will
be better for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.
And you,
Capernaum, you will not be exalted to heaven. No, you will be brought down
to Hades.
Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you
rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the One who commissioned
me.”
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “lord, even the demons are
submitting to us in your name!”
So Jesus replied, “I was watching Satan falling from heaven like lightning.
Look, I have given you authority to tread on
snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will
harm you.
But do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you; instead rejoice
that your names are written down in heaven.”
At that very time Jesus was filled with joy in the holy spirit, and said, “I
praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these
things from the wise and clever people and revealed them to children! Yes,
Father, You are pleased to do things this way.
Everything has been handed
over to me by my Father. No one understands who the Son is except the
Father, and who the Father is except the Son,
and anyone to whom the
Son chooses to reveal Him.”
Jesus turned to the disciples and said privately, “How blessed are the
eyes which see what you see!
I tell you that many prophets and kings
wanted to see the things you are seeing, but they did not see them, and to hear
the things you are hearing, but they did not hear them.”
An expert in the Law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what
should I do to inherit the Life of the Age to Come?”
Jesus asked him, “What
is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?”
The man answered, “You
should love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole self, your
whole strength, and your whole mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”
But the man, wanting to prove himself right, asked Jesus, “And who is my
neighbor?”
Jesus said in reply, “There was a man who was going from Jerusalem to
Jericho. He was attacked by robbers who stripped him and beat him. They
left him half dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road. When he
saw the man, he passed by on the other side of the road.
In the same way a
Levite, when he got to the place and saw the man, also passed by on the other
side.
But then a Samaritan came along. When he saw the man he felt
compassion for him.
He went over to him and bandaged his wounds,
treating them with oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey and
took him to an inn where he took care of him.
The next day he gave two
denarii to the innkeeper and said to him, ‘Take care of him, and whatever you
spend more than this, when I return I will pay you back.’
So which one of
these three people do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man attacked
by robbers?”
The man replied, “The one who showed kindness to him.”
Jesus said to him, “Then go and do the same.”
As they were traveling along, Jesus went into a village, and a woman
named Martha welcomed him into her home.
She had a sister named Mary,
who sat at the lord’s feet to listen to his Gospel-word.
Martha was
preoccupied with getting the meal ready, and she came up to Jesus and said,
“lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell
her to come and help me.”
But the lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you are
anxious and bothered about many things.
But only one thing is really
needed here. Mary has chosen what is best, and it will not be taken away
from her.”
Luke