The Babylonian tyrant pulls them all up with a fishhook; he hauls them in with his throw net. When he catches them in his dragnet, he is very happy.

God comes from Teman, the sovereign one from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the skies, his glory fills the earth.

Moreover, the Lord who rules over all says: ‘In just a little while I will once again shake the sky and the earth, the sea and the dry ground.

“I am about to punish them in such a way,” he says, “that they will be looted by their own slaves.” Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me.

I am about to discipline your children and will spread offal on your faces, the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

Then John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?”

Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up?

They do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries wide and their tassels long.

and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” So they set out thirty silver coins for him.

He trusts in God – let God, if he wants to, deliver him now because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!”

Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep.

It shrieked, threw him into terrible convulsions, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He is dead!”

Then all the disciples left him and fled.

(Now all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism.

While he was still speaking, someone from the synagogue ruler’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.”

Woe to you experts in religious law! You have taken away the key to knowledge! You did not go in yourselves, and you hindered those who were going in.”

But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you, but who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by how you use worldly wealth, so that when it runs out you will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’

If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?