Then John answered, "Master, we saw a man driving out demons by the use of your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not belong to our followers."

While they were going along the road, a man said to Him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on before Him, two by two, to every town or place which He was going to visit.

So He was saying to them: "The harvest is plentiful, but the reapers are scarce. So pray the Lord of the harvest to send out reapers to His harvest-field.

Do not carry a purse, a bag, or shoes, and do not stop to say 'Good morning' to anybody on the road.

And if anyone there loves peace, your peace will come upon him; but if not, it will come back to you.

'We are wiping off against you the very dust from your town that has stuck to our feet. But understand this, the kingdom of God is close by.'

And you, Capernaum, are you to be exalted to heaven? No, you are to go down to the regions of the dead.

Now the seventy returned and joyously reported, "Lord, even the demons are submitting to us in your name."

However, you must stop rejoicing over the fact that the spirits are submitting to you, but continue to rejoice that your names are enrolled in heaven."

At that very moment, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He exulted and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for concealing these matters from wise and learned men, and for revealing them to little children. Yes, Father, I thank you that your good pleasure made it so.

Then He turned to His disciples when they were alone, and said, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you are seeing.

For I tell you, many prophets and kings have wished to see what you are seeing, but they did not, and to hear what you are hearing, but they did not."

Then he answered, "You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole strength, and your whole mind, and your neighbor as you do yourself."

Now as they were journeying on, He came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him to her house.

The Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and vexed about many things.

So He said to them, "Whenever you pray, say: 'Father, Your name be revered; Your kingdom come;

continue giving us day by day our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who does us wrong, and do not let us be subjected to temptation.'"

And suppose he answers from inside, 'Stop bothering me; the door is now locked, and my children are packed about me in bed; I cannot get up and give you any.'

I tell you, although he will not get up and give you any because he is your friend, yet because of your persistence he will get up and give you all your needs.

Or, if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

So if you, in spite of your being bad, know how to give your children what is good, how much more surely will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who continue to ask Him?"

Now He was driving a dumb demon out of a man, and when the demon went out of him, the dumb man spoke. The crowds were astonished.

But others, to test Him, were demanding from Him a spectacular sign from heaven.

But He knew what they were thinking, and so said to them, "Any kingdom that is not united is in the process of destruction, and one house falls after another.

Now if I with Beelzebub's help am driving the demons out, with whose help do your sons drive them out?

But He said, "Yes, but better still, blessed are those who listen to God's message and practice it!"

No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cellar or under a peck-measure, but he puts it on the lampstand, that the people who come in may enjoy the light.

Your eye is the very lamp of your body. When your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light. But if your eye is unsound, your body is full of darkness.

So be on your guard that the very source of light in you is not darkness.

If then your whole body is full of light with no part of it in darkness, it will all be as light for you as it is when a lamp makes it light for you by its shining."

But the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees have the habit of cleaning the outside of your cups and dishes, but inside you yourselves are full of greed and wickedness.

But dedicate once for all your inner self, and at once you will have everything clean.

A curse on you, because you are like unmarked graves which men walk over without knowing it!"

Then an expert in the law interrupted Him and said, "Teacher, in saying this you are insulting us, too."

He said, "Yes, a curse on you experts in the law, too, because you load people down with loads too heavy to carry, and yet you do not touch the loads yourselves with one of your fingers!

A curse on you, because you build monuments for the prophets, whom your forefathers killed!

So you testify to what your forefathers did and approve it, because they killed them and you build monuments for them.

Meanwhile as the people had gathered in tens of thousands, so that they were trampling upon one another, He began to say, first of all, to His disciples: "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, hypocrisy.

Are not sparrows sold five for two cents? And yet not one of them is forgotten by God!

Yes, the very hairs on your heads have all been counted by God! Stop being afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Now when they are bringing you before the synagogues or the magistrates or the authorities, never worry about how to defend yourselves, or what to say,

Just then a man in the crowd said to Him, "Tell my brother to share with me our inheritance."

But He said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or umpire in your affairs?"

And then He said to them, "Be ever on the alert and always on your guard against every form of greed, because a man's life does not consist in his possessions, even though they are abundant."

Then I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Go on taking your ease; continue to eat, drink, and enjoy yourself."'

But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is to be demanded of you. Then who will have all that you have prepared?'

Then He said to His disciples: "Stop worrying, then, about life, as to what you will have to eat, or about your body, as to what you will have to wear.

Your life is worth more than food, and your body more than clothes.

Just think of the ravens! For they neither sow nor reap, they have no storehouses nor barns, and yet God continues to feed them. How much more are you worth than the birds!

For all these are the very things the nations of the world are greedily trying to get, and surely your Father well knows that you need them.

Stop being afraid, my little flock, for your Father has gladly chosen to give you the kingdom.

Sell your property and give to charity. Provide for yourselves purses that will never wear out, riches that never fail in heaven, where a thief cannot come near nor a moth destroy,

For wherever your treasure is, there too your heart will be.

"You must keep your belts tight and your lamps burning,

Happy are those slaves whom the master, when he comes, will find on the watch for him. I solemnly say to you, he will tighten his belt and have them sit at table, and he will go around and wait on them.

Whether he comes before or after midnight, if he finds them so, happy are they.

So you, too, must always be ready, for at an hour that you are not expecting, the Son of Man will come."

Peter said to Him, "Lord, do you mean this story for us, or is it for everybody?"

That slave who knows his master's wishes and does not get ready or act upon them will be severely punished.

"It is fire that I have come to bring upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

For instance, when you are on the way to court with your opponent, take the utmost pains on the way to get entirely rid of him, so that he may not rush you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the sheriff, and the sheriff put you in prison.

Then He answered them, "Do you think, because these Galileans suffered like this, that they were worse sinners than all the rest of the Galileans?

Or those eighteen people at Siloam on whom the tower fell and whom it crushed to death, do you think that they were offenders worse than all the rest of the people who live in Jerusalem?

But he answered, 'Leave it, sir, just one more year, till I dig around it and manure it.

As soon as Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your disease!"

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the Sabbath, answered the crowd, "There are six days on which people must work; so come on these and be cured, but not on the Sabbath."

Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not everyone of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey and lead him out of the stable to water him?

Even while He was saying this, His opponents were blushing with shame, but all the people were rejoicing over all the glorious things that were being done by Him.

And someone asked Him, "Lord, are only a few to be saved?" And He said to them,

when once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand on the outside and to knock on the door again and again and say, 'Lord, open it for us'; but He will answer, 'I do not know where you come from.'

Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'

But He will say to you, 'I do not know where you come from. Go away from me, all you wrongdoers!'

There you will weep and grind your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves being driven away on the outside.

And so there are those now last who will be first then, and there are those now first who will then be last."

"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! The city that continues to murder the prophets, and to stone those who are sent to her, how often I have yearned to gather your children around me, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. But you refused!

Now your house is abandoned to its fate! And I tell you, you will never see me again until you say, 'Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

He answered the experts in the law and the Pharisees by asking, "Is it right to cure people on the Sabbath or not?"

Then He said to them, "Which of you, if his son or ox falls into a well, will not at once pull him out on the Sabbath?"

When He noticed how the guests were picking out the best places, He told them the following story:

"When you are invited by anyone to a wedding supper, never take the best place, for someone of greater distinction than you may have been invited,

so that your host may not come and say to you, 'Make room for this man'; and then in embarrassment you will proceed to take and keep the lowest place.

But when you are invited anywhere, go and take the lowest place, so that when your host comes in, he may say to you, 'My friend, come up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow-guests.

Then He proceeded to say to the man who invited Him: "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, stop the social custom of inviting your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, for they may invite you in return and so you will be repaid.

But when you give a reception, make it your habit to invite people that are poor, maimed, crippled, or blind.

For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited shall get a taste of my dinner!'"

Now great crowds were going along with Him, and all at once He turned and said to them:

"Or what king, when he is going to make an attack on another king, does not first sit down and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand soldiers to meet the other king who is coming against him with twenty thousand?

Now all the tax-collectors and notorious sinners were crowding around Him to listen to Him.

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them, does not light a lamp and sweep the house, and look carefully until she finds it?

And often he craved to fill himself with the carob-pods which the hogs were eating, and nobody gave him a bite.

I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your opinion;

I no longer deserve to be called your son; just treat me like one of your hired men."'

His son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your opinion; I no longer deserve to be called your son; just treat me like one of your hired men.'

He said to him, 'Your brother has come back, and your father has killed the fattening calf, because he has gotten him back safe and sound.'

But when this son of yours arrives, who has eaten up your property with immoral women, you have killed for him the fattening calf.'

So he called the manager to him and said, 'What is this that I am hearing about you? Balance your accounts and show how you are conducting my affairs, for you cannot be manager any longer.'

He answered, 'Nine hundred gallons of oil.' Then he said to him, 'Take your bill and sit right down and write four hundred and fifty.'

Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He answered, 'Twelve hundred bushels of wheat:' He said to him, 'Take your bill and write nine hundred and sixty.'