Chapter 14

¹One Sabbath, when he went to take a meal at the house of a member of the council who was a Pharisee, they were watching him closely. ²There was a man in front of him who had dropsy. ³And Jesus said to the Pharisees and the experts in the Law,

“Is it right to cure people on the Sabbath or not?”

⁴But they made no answer. And he took hold of the man and cured him and sent him away. ⁵Then he said to them,

“Who among you, if his child or his ox falls into a well, will not pull him out at once on the Sabbath?” ⁶And they could make no reply to this.

⁷He noticed that the guests picked out the best places, and he gave them this illustration:

⁸“When someone invites you to a wedding supper, do not take the best place, for someone more distinguished than you are may have been invited, ⁹and your host will come and say to you ‘Make room for this man,’ and then you will proceed in confusion to take the poorest place. ¹⁰But when you are invited anywhere, go and take the poorest place, so that when your host comes in, he will say to you, ‘My friend, come to a better place.’ So you will be shown consideration before all the other guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.”

¹²And he said to the man who had invited him,

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, for then they will invite you in return and you will be repaid. ¹³But when you give an entertainment, invite people who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. ¹⁴Then you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the upright.”

¹⁵One of the other guests heard this, and said to him,

“Blessed is the man who shall be at the banquet in the Kingdom of God!”

¹⁶He said to him,

“A man once gave a great dinner, and invited a large number to it, ¹⁷and when the dinner hour came, he sent around his slave, to say to those who were invited, ‘Come! for it is now ready!’ ¹⁸And they all immediately began to excuse themselves. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go and look at it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰Another said, ‘I have married, and so I cannot come.’ ²¹So the slave went back, and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his slave, ‘Hurry out into the streets and squares of the city, and bring the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame in here!’ ²²And the slave said, ‘What you ordered, sir, has been done, and there is still room.’ ²³And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out on the roads, and among the hedges, and make them come in so that my house may be full. ²⁴For I tell you that none of those men who were invited shall have any of my dinner!’ ”

²⁵There were great crowds accompanying him, and once he turned and said to them,

²⁶“If anyone comes to me without hating his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and his very life too, he cannot be a disciple of mine. ²⁷For no one who does not take up his own cross and come after me can be a disciple of mine. ²⁸What man among you if he wishes to build a tower does not first sit down and estimate the cost of it, to see whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Or else when he has laid his foundation and cannot finish the building, everyone who sees it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰and say, ‘This man started to erect a building, and could not finish it!’ ³¹Or what king, if he is going to meet another king in battle, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to meet the other who is coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²And if he cannot, while the other is still far away, he sends envoys to him and asks on what terms he will make peace. ³³In just that way, no one of you who does not say goodbye to all he has can be a disciple of mine. ³⁴Salt is good; but if salt loses its strength, what can it be seasoned with? ³⁵It is fit neither for the ground nor the manure heap; people throw it away. Let him who has ears to hear with, listen!”