“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, because a person more distinguished than you may have been invited by your host.

For just like the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

and all who heard it were astonished at what the shepherds said.

He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by all.

You will be hated by everyone because of my name.

For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

However, the Pharisees and the experts in religious law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

while others were saying that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had risen.

You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will have some of you put to death.

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

So John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil deeds that he had done,

where for forty days he endured temptations from the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were completed, he was famished.

When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

Now Herod the tetrarch heard about everything that was happening, and he was thoroughly perplexed, because some people were saying that John had been raised from the dead,

“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.

“Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.

At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the worries and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.