“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.

“The law and the prophets were in force until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urged to enter it.

It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

“Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’?

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.

Then another slave came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina that I put away for safekeeping in a piece of cloth.

But when the tenants saw him, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir; let’s kill him so the inheritance will be ours!’

“But be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap.

For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

For who is greater, the one who is seated at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Now that very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.

but they urged him, “Stay with us, because it is getting toward evening and the day is almost done.” So he went in to stay with them.

They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us while he was speaking with us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us?”

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well.”

When his parents saw him, they were overwhelmed. His mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart.

They got up, forced him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

But the person who hears and does not put my words into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against that house, it collapsed immediately, and was utterly destroyed!”