A centurion there had a slave who was highly regarded, but who was sick and at the point of death.

When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.

For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."

So when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave well.

Blessed is that slave whom his master finds at work when he returns.

But if that slave should say to himself, 'My master is delayed in returning,' and he begins to beat the other slaves, both men and women, and to eat, drink, and get drunk,

then the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not foresee, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the unfaithful.

At the time for the banquet he sent his slave to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, because everything is now ready.'

So the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the master of the household was furious and said to his slave, 'Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.'

Then the slave said, 'Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.'

So the master said to his slave, 'Go out to the highways and country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled.

The slave replied, 'Your brother has returned, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he got his son back safe and sound.'

but he answered his father, 'Look! These many years I have worked like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your commands. Yet you never gave me even a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends!

"Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, 'Come at once and sit down for a meal'?

He won't thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he?

And the king said to him, 'Well done, good slave! Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, you will have authority over ten cities.'

Then another slave came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina that I put away for safekeeping in a piece of cloth.

The king said to him, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! So you knew, did you, that I was a severe man, withdrawing what I didn't deposit and reaping what I didn't sow?

When harvest time came, he sent a slave to the tenants so that they would give him his portion of the crop. However, the tenants beat his slave and sent him away empty-handed.

So he sent another slave. They beat this one too, treated him outrageously, and sent him away empty-handed.

Then one of them struck the high priest's slave, cutting off his right ear.

Then a slave girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight, stared at him and said, "This man was with him too!"