He was still speaking when a luminous cloud spread over them; and a voice was heard from within the cloud, which said, "This is My Son dearly beloved, in whom is My delight. Listen to Him."

"Here are my mother and my brothers. For wherever there is one who has been obedient to God, there is my brother--my sister--and my mother."

"My mother and my brothers," He replied, "are these who hear God's Message and obey it."

As He thus spoke a woman in the crowd called out in a loud voice, "Blessed is the mother who carried you, and the breasts that you have sucked."

"This," replied Jesus, "is above all the thing that God requires--that you should be believers in Him whom He has sent."

You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

Moses declared, "'The Lord your God will raise up a Prophet for you from among your brethren as He has raised me. In all that He says to you, you must listen to Him.

and, bringing them out of the prison, he exclaimed, "O sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Those times of ignorance God viewed with indulgence. But now He commands all men everywhere to repent,

but I proceeded to preach first to the people in Damascus, and then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, and to the Gentiles, that they must repent and turn to God, and live lives consistent with such repentance.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance; but only faith working through love.

For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance; but only a renewed nature.

In that new creation there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free man, but Christ is everything and is in all of us.

and so, having been made perfect, He became to all who obey Him the source and giver of eternal salvation.

Ridding yourselves, therefore, of all that is vile and of the evil influences which prevail around you, welcome in a humble spirit the Message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls.

that in future you may spend the rest of your earthly lives, governed not by human passions, but by the will of God.

And the world, with its cravings, is passing away, but he who does God's will continues for ever.

And this is His command--that we are to believe in His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us to do.

Blessed are those who wash their robes clean, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life, and may go through the gates into the city.

The same

"But the King will answer them, "'In solemn truth I tell you that in so far as you rendered such services to one of the humblest of these my brethren, you rendered them to myself.'

Then He said, "Dismiss all fear! Go and take word to my brethren to go into Galilee, and there they shall see me."

"Do not cling to me," said Jesus, "for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But take this message to my brethren: 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

For those whom He has known beforehand He has also pre-destined to bear the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Eldest in a vast family of brothers;

For both He who sanctifies and those whom He is sanctifying have all one Father; and for this reason He is not ashamed to speak of them as His brothers;

And sister

Have we not a right to take with us on our journeys a Christian sister as our wife, as the rest of the Apostles do--and the Lord's brothers and Peter?

I am jealous over you with God's own jealousy. For I have betrothed you to Christ to present you to Him like a faithful bride to her one husband.

Married men, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up to death for her;

And mother

So Jesus, seeing His mother, and seeing the disciple whom He loved standing near, said to His mother, "Behold, your son!"

the elder women too as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, with perfect modesty.

General references

Then came to Him His mother and His brothers, but could not get near Him for the crowd.

"Nay rather," He replied, "they are blessed who hear God's Message and carefully keep it."