“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in can see the light.

until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’

Therefore be resolved not to rehearse ahead of time how to make your defense.

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish the tower, all who see it will begin to make fun of him.

He went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed,

Just then some men showed up, carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and place him before Jesus.

“Take these words to heart, for the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.”

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hidden place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in can see the light.

For I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You withdraw what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’

Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and placed it in a tomb cut out of the rock, where no one had yet been buried.

The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.

All who heard these things kept them in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the Lord’s hand was indeed with him.

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.

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?

He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep, and laid the foundation on bedrock. When a flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.