Let your loins be girt up and your lamps burning, and yourselves like men who are expecting their master when he comes back from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks they can open promptly to him. Blessed are those slaves whom this master returning finds wide awake; truly I tell you, he will gird himself up and set them down to dine and go about and wait on them. And if he comes in the second watch or the third and finds them thus, blessed are they. But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what time the thief was coming, he would have been watchful and not let his house be broken into. And you, be ready, because the son of man comes in the hour when you do not expect him. Peter said: Lord, are you telling this parable to us or to all? And the Lord said: Who is the faithful steward, the prudent one, whom his master will set over the servants of his household to give them their measure of food when it is due? Blessed is that slave whom his master arriving finds doing thus; truly I tell you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart: My master is late returning; and begins to beat the men- servants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him in the hour when he is unaware, and cut him to ribbons, and make his lot one with the unfaithful. That slave who knows the will of his master, and does not make ready or act according to his will, will be beaten with many strokes; but the one who knows nothing and does what deserves whipping will be beaten with few strokes. Everyone to whom much is given will have much required of him; from him to whom much was entrusted they will demand more.
I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what is my will if it has already been lit? I have a baptism to undergo, and how I am oppressed until it is done with. Do you think that I came to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, dissension rather. For from now there will be five in one house at odds with each other, three against two and two against three, and father will be at odds with son and son with father, mother with daughter and daughter with mother, mother-in-law with her daughter-in-law and daughter- in-law with mother-in-law.
And he said to the multitudes: When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once: Rain is coming. And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say: There will be hot weather. And so it happens. You hypocrites, you know how to read the face of the earth and the sky, but how is it you do not know how to read this time? And why do you not judge what is right of your own will. As you go with your adversary at law to the magistrate, make an effort to be reconciled with him on the way there, for fear he may drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the bailiff, and the bailiff throw you in prison. I tell you, you cannot come out of there until you pay the last penny.
41 At that time some people came to him and brought him news about the Galilaeans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And he answered and said to them: Do you suppose that these Galilaeans, because they suffered this, were sinners as compared with the rest of the Galilaeans? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all be destroyed like them. Or those eighteen when the tower at Siloam fell on them and killed them. Do you suppose they were guilty as compared with all the rest of the people whc live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all be destroyed in the same way. And he told them this parable: A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the gardener: It is three years now since I began coming and looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding it. Cut it down. Why should it be wasting the soil? But he answered and said to him: Master, let it go for this year too, until I have cultivated it and put manure on it. And if it bears fruit after that, welclass="underline" . . . but if it does not, you will cut it down.
He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and she was bent over and unable to straighten up at all. And Jesus saw her and spoke to her and said: Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity, and laid his hands on her. And immediately she straightened up and glorified God. But the head of the synagogue, angered because Jesus had given treatment on the sabbath, said to the congregation: There are six days in which one must work. Come then and be healed on those days and not on the day of the sabbath. The Lord answered him and said: You hypocrites, does not each of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his donkey from the crib and lead him to water? And she, who is a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had kept bound for eighteen years, must she not be loosed from this bondage on the day of the sabbath? And when he said this, all who were set against him were put to shame, and all the masses were happy over all the glorious things that came to be through him.
Then he said: What is the Kingdom of God like, and to what shall I liken it? It is like a grain of mustard, which a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, so that the birds of the air came and nested in its branches. And again he said: To what shall I liken the Kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and buried in three measures of dough, so that it all rose.
And he journeyed through the cities and villages, teaching and making his way toward Jerusalem. And a man said to him: Lord, will those who are saved be few? And he said to them: Struggle to go in through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, try to get in and are not able to, from the time when the master of the house wakens and bars the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he will answer and say to you: I do not know you or where you come from. Then you will begin to say: We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our public places. Then he will speak and say to you: I do not know where you come from. Go away from me, all you workers of iniquity. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and yourselves cast outside. And they will come from the east and the west, and the north and the south, and be feasted in the Kingdom of God. And behold, they are last who will be first, and they are first who will be last.
In the same hour some Pharisees came to him and said: Go and make your way from here, because Herod wants to kill you. And he said to them: Go and say to that fox: Look, I cast out demons and effect my cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I am done. But I must go forward today and tomorrow and the next day, because there is no way for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I have wished to gather your children together as a bird gathers her brood under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is deserted. I tell you, you cannot see me until you say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.