Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

14 It happened that when He went into the house of one of the ^[a]leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. ² And ^[b]there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. ³ And Jesus answered and spoke to the ^[c]lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” ⁴ But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. ⁵ And He said to them, “^[d]Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” ⁶ And they could make no reply to this.

Parable of the Guests

⁷ And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not ^[e]take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you ^[f]proceed to occupy the last place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who ^[g]are at the table with you. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

¹² And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. ¹³ But when you give a ^[h]reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, since they ^[i]do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

¹⁵ When one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Parable of the Dinner

¹⁶ But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; ¹⁷ and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a ^[j]piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; ^[k]please consider me excused.’ ¹⁹ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; ^[l]please consider me excused.’ ²⁰ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ ²¹ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

Discipleship Tested

²⁵ Now ^[m]large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to Me, and does not ^[n]hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸ For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends ^[o]a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

³⁴ “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? ³⁵ It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, ^[p]let him hear.”

The Watchman’s Duty

33 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ‘If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman, ³ and he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴ then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself. But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away ^[a]in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.’

⁷ “Now as for you, son of man, I have ^[b]appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a ^[c]message from My mouth and give them warning from Me. ⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. ⁹ But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.

¹⁰ “Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we ^[d]survive?”’ ¹¹ Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord ^[e]God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ ¹² And you, son of man, say to ^[f]your fellow citizens, ‘The righteousness of a righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not stumble because of it in the day when he turns from his wickedness; whereas a righteous man will not be able to live ^[g]by his righteousness on the day when he commits sin.’ ¹³ When I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but in that same iniquity of his which he has committed he will die. ¹⁴ But when I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness, ¹⁵ if a wicked man restores a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statutes ^[h]which ensure life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ¹⁶ None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has practiced justice and righteousness; he shall surely live.

¹⁷ “Yet ^[i]your fellow citizens say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right,’ when it is their own way that is not right. ¹⁸ When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in ^[j]it. ¹⁹ But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them. ²⁰ Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

Word of Jerusalem’s Capture

²¹ Now in the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth of the tenth month, the ^[k]refugees from Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been ^[l]taken.” ²² Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening, before the ^[m]refugees came. And He opened my mouth ^[n]at the time they came to me in the morning; so my mouth was opened and I was no longer ^[o]speechless.

²³ Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, ²⁴ “Son of man, they who live in these waste places in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one, yet he possessed the land; so to us who are many the land has been given as a possession.’ ²⁵ Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “You eat meat with the blood in it, lift up your eyes to your idols as you shed blood. Should you then possess the land? ²⁶ You ^[p]rely on your sword, you commit abominations and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?”’ ²⁷ Thus you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword, and whoever is in the ^[q]open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of pestilence. ²⁸ I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and the pride of her power will cease; and the mountains of Israel will be desolate so that no one will pass through. ²⁹ Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I make the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations which they have committed.”’

³⁰ “But as for you, son of man, ^[r]your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, speak to one another, each to his brother, saying, ‘Come now and hear what the ^[s]message is which comes forth from the Lord.’ ³¹ They come to you as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their gain. ³² Behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; for they hear your words but they do not practice them. ³³ So when it comes to pass—^[t]as surely it will—then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst.”