Chapter 17

¹And he said to his disciples,

“It is inevitable that hindrances should arise, but alas for the man who causes them! ²He might better have a millstone hung around his neck, and be thrown into the sea, than be a hindrance to one of these humble people. ³Look out for yourselves! If your brother wrongs you, take it up with him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴And if he wrongs you seven times a day, and seven times turns to you and says, ‘I am sorry,’ you must forgive him.”

⁵The apostles said to the Master, “Give us more faith.”

⁶And the Master said,

“If your faith is as big as a mustard seed, you might have said to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and planted in the sea,’ and it would have obeyed you!

⁷“What man among you, if he has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep, will say to him when he comes in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at the table,’ ⁸instead of saying to him, ‘Get my supper ready, and dress yourself, and wait on me while I eat and drink, and you can eat and drink afterward’? ⁹Is he grateful to the slave for doing what he has been ordered to do? ¹⁰So you also, when you do all you have been ordered to do, must say, ‘We are good-for-nothing slaves! We have done only what we ought to have done!’ ”

¹¹It happened that, on his way to Jerusalem, he passed through Samaria and Galilee. ¹²And as he was going into one village he met ten lepers, and they stood at some distance from him, ¹³and raising their voices, said,

“Jesus, Master, take pity on us!”

¹⁴And when he saw them, he said to them,

“Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

And as they went they were cured. ¹⁵But one of them, when he saw that he was cured, came back, loudly praising God, ¹⁶and fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. ¹⁷And Jesus said,

“Were not all ten cured? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Was no one found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?”

¹⁹And he said to him,

“Stand up and go! Your faith has cured you.”

²⁰He was once asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, and he answered,

“The Kingdom of God is not coming visibly, ²¹and people will not say, ‘Look! here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ for the Kingdom of God is within you.”

²²And he said to his disciples,

“The time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not be able to do so. ²³Men will say to you, ‘Look! There he is!’ or, ‘Look! Here he is!’ Do not go off in pursuit of him, ²⁴for just as when the lightning flashes, it shines from one end of the sky to the other, that will be the way with the Son of Man. ²⁵But first he must go through much suffering, and be refused by this age. ²⁶In the time of the Son of Man it will be just as it was in the time of Noah. ²⁷People went on eating, drinking, marrying, and being married up to the very day that Noah got into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. ²⁸Or as it was in Lot’s time; they went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building, ²⁹but the day Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. ³⁰It will be like that on the day when the Son of Man appears. ³¹A man who is on the roof of his house that day, with his goods in the house, must not go down to get them, and a man in the field, too, must not turn back. ³²Remember Lot’s wife! ³³Whoever tries to preserve his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. ³⁴I tell you, there will be two men in the same bed that night; one will be taken and the other left. ³⁵There will be two women grinding together; one will be taken and the other left!”

³⁷They said to him,

“Where will this be, Master?”

And he said to them,

“Wherever there is a dead body the vultures will flock!”