Now He told them the following story to show how necessary it is for people always to pray and never to give up:

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax-collector.

You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Practice honoring your father and mother.'"

When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell everything you have, and distribute the money among the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come back and follow me."

Then Zaccheus got up and said to the Lord, "Listen, Lord! I now give to the poor half of my property, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay him back four times as much."

So they closely watched and sent spies who pretended to be upright men, to catch Him in His conversation, so as to turn Him over to the power and authority of the governor.

"Show me a twenty-cent coin. Whose picture and title does it bear?" They answered, "Caesar's."

Then He saw a poor widow drop in two little coins which make scarcely a cent.

And He said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has dropped in more than all of them;

and you will be continuously hated by everyone, because you bear my name.

Then they will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud in overwhelming power and splendor.

Now when He reached the spot, He said to them, "Continue to pray that you may not be subjected to temptation."

And He Himself withdrew about a stone's throw from them, and after kneeling down He continued to pray,

While I was among you day after day in the temple, you never laid a hand on me! But this is your opportunity, even the power which darkness gives you!"

And I will send down upon you what my Father has promised. But you, on your part, must stay right here in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

Jesus performed this, the first of His wonder-works, at Cana in Galilee. By it He showed His glorious power, and so His disciples believed in Him.

And they went to John and said to him, "Teacher, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, to whom you bore testimony yourself, is baptizing people and everybody is going to Him."

You can bear testimony to me yourselves that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent as His announcer.'

He continues to bear testimony to what He has actually seen and heard, and yet no one accepts His testimony.

"If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is of no force,

The crowd answered, "You are certainly under the power of a demon! Who is trying to kill you?"

Then the Jews answered Him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and are under the power of a demon?"

Jesus answered: "I am not under the power of a demon; on the other hand, I am honoring my Father, but you are dishonoring me.

Then the Jews said to Him, "Now we know that you are under the power of a demon. Abraham is dead; the prophets too, and yet you say, 'If anyone follows my teaching, he will never experience death.'

Many of them said, "He is under the power of a demon and is going crazy. Why are you listening to Him?"

Others said, "These are not the words of a man who is under the power of a demon. A demon cannot make the eyes of the blind see, can he?"

So the Jews who were with her in the house sympathizing with her, when they saw Mary jump up and go out, followed her, because they supposed that she was going to the grave to pour out her grief there.

"Why was this perfume not sold for sixty dollars and the money given to the poor?"

He said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and as the carrier of the purse for the Twelve he was in the habit of taking what was put into it.

for you always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

for some of them were thinking, as Judas had the purse, that Jesus meant to say to him, "Buy what we need for the feast," or to give something to the poor.

He cuts away any branch on me that stops bearing fruit, and He repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more.

You must remain in union with me and I will remain in union with you. Just as no branch by itself can bear fruit unless it remains united to the vine, so you cannot unless you remain in union with me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in union with me and I in union with him will bear abundant fruit, because you cannot do anything cut off from union with me.

You have not chosen me; I have chosen you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, that your fruit may remain too, so that the Father may grant you, as bearers of my name, whatever you ask Him for.

And you too are to bear testimony to me, because you have been with me from the start."

And now I am no longer to be in the world, but they are to stay on in the world, while I am going to be with you. Holy Father, keep them by the power which you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.

As long as I was with them, I kept them by your power which you gave me, and I protected them, and not one of them was lost, except the one who is now doomed to be lost, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

Then Pilate said to Him, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have it in my power to set you free or to crucify you?"

Jesus answered him, "You would have no power at all over me, if it had not been given to you from above. So the man who betrayed me to you is more guilty than you."

but you are going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you must be witnesses for me in Jerusalem and all over Judea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth."

'It will occur in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all mankind. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will have visions. Your old men will have dreams.

Even on my slaves, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will become prophets.

but God raised Him up by loosing Him from the pangs of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held by the power of death.

When Peter saw this, he said to the people, "Fellow Israelites, why are you so surprised at this? Why do you keep staring at us, as though we had by our own power or piety made this man walk?

They had the men stand before them and repeatedly inquired of them, "By what sort of power and authority have you done this?"

So with great power the apostles continued to give their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's favor rested richly on them all.

Now Stephen, full of grace and power, went on performing great signs and wonders among the people.

but they could not cope with his good practical sense and the spiritual power with which he usually spoke.

For many of those under the power of foul spirits cried out and the spirits came out of them, and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured.

Everybody, high and low, kept running after him, saying, "He is certainly what is known as the Great Power of God!"

and said, "Give me this power too, that when I lay my hands on anyone he may receive the Holy Spirit."

So repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, to see if this thought of your heart may be forgiven you.

"Tell me, I pray, of whom is the prophet speaking," asked the official of Philip, "of himself or of someone else?"

The next day, while those men were traveling on and not far from the town, Peter went up on the housetop about noon to pray.

how God consecrated Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and then He went about doing good and curing all who were overpowered by the devil, because God was with Him.

To this very One all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him is to receive the forgiveness of sins through His name."

Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I really know that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from the power of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting to do to me."

Then He deposed him and raised up for them David to be king, to whom He bore this testimony, 'I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all that my will requires.'

In spite of this, however, they stayed there a considerable time and continued to speak with courage from the Lord, who continued to bear testimony to His gracious message and kept on granting signs and wonders to be done by them.

Then why do you now try to test God by putting on these disciples' necks a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we could bear?

Symeon has told how God at first graciously visited the heathen to take from among them a people to bear His name.

That night at once the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea, and on arriving there they went to the Jewish synagogue.

But when the Jews at Thessalonica learned that God's message had been proclaimed at Berea by Paul, they came there too to excite the masses and stir up a riot.

In a way of just such power as this the Lord's message kept on spreading and prevailing.

He had as companions Sopater, the son of Pyrrhus, from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.

Take them along with you, purify yourself with them, and bear the expense for them of having their heads shaved. Then everybody will know that none of those things they have been told about you are so, but that you yourself are living as a constant observer of the law.

as the high priest and the whole council will bear me witness. Indeed, I had received letters from them to the brothers in Damascus, and I was on the way there to bind those who were there and bring them back to Jerusalem to be punished.

to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's power to God, so as to have their sins forgiven and have a possession among those that are consecrated by faith in me.'

proved to be God's Son in power by the resurrection from the dead -- I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord,

Indeed, my witness is God, whom I serve in my spirit by telling the good news about His Son, that I never fail to mention you every time I pray,

For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who trusts, of the Jew first and then of the Greek.

Forever since the creation of the world, His invisible characteristics -- His eternal power and divine nature -- have been made intelligible and clearly visible by His works. So they are without excuse,

Because he never weakened in faith, he calmly contemplated his own vital powers as worn out (for he was about one hundred years old) and the inability of Sarah to bear a child,

So through baptism we have been buried with Him in death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, so we too should live an entirely new life.

for we know that Christ, who once was raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over Him.

So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right.

but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature.

For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the power of sin and death.

In the same way the Spirit, too, is helping us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself pleads for us with unspeakable yearnings,

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you to your position for this very purpose of displaying my power in dealing with you, of announcing my name all over the earth."

And what if God, though wishing to display His anger and make known His power, yet, has most patiently borne with the objects of His anger, already ripe for destruction,

Who are you to criticize another man's servant? It is his own master's business whether he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord has power to make him stand.

It is the duty of us who are strong to bear with the weaknesses of those who are not strong, and not merely to please ourselves.

May the hope-inspiring God so fill you with perfect joy and peace through your continuing faith, that you may bubble over with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I have completed the telling of the good news of Christ all the way from Jerusalem around to Illyricum.

For Macedonia and Greece were delighted to make a contribution to the poor among God's people in Jerusalem.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the good news -- but not by means of wisdom and rhetoric, so that the cross of Christ may not be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is nonsense to those who are in the process of being destroyed, but it is the power of God to those who are in the process of being saved.

but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks alike, the Christ who is God's power and God's wisdom.

and my language and the message I preached were not adorned with pleasing words of worldly wisdom, but they were attended with proof and power given by the Spirit,

so that your faith might not be in men's wisdom, but in God's power.

We have worked hard with our own hands for a living. When abused by people, we bless them. When persecuted, we patiently bear it.

for when you met I too met with you in spirit by the power of our Lord Jesus --

And as God by His power raised the Lord to life, so He will raise us too.

Yes, indeed, though I am free from any human power, I have made myself a slave to everybody, to win as many as possible.

No temptation has taken hold of you but what is common to human nature. And God is to be trusted not to let you be tempted beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to make a way out of it, so that you can bear up under it.

You must judge for yourselves in this matter. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with nothing on her head?