&#8220;When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast,<n id="1" /> do not take<n id="2" /> the place of honor, because a person more distinguished than you may have been invited by your host.<n id="3" />

For just like the lightning flashes<n id="1" /> and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.<n id="2" />

and all who heard it were astonished<n id="1" /> at what the shepherds said.

He<n id="1" /> began to teach<n id="2" /> in their synagogues<n id="3" /> and was praised<n id="4" /> by all.p>

You will be hated by everyone because of my name.<n id="1" />

For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me.<n id="1" /> I say to this one, &#8216;Go,&#8217; and he goes,<n id="2" /> and to another, &#8216;Come,&#8217; and he comes, and to my slave, &#8216;Do this,&#8217; and he does it.&#8221;<n id="3" />

However, the Pharisees<n id="1" /> and the experts in religious law<n id="2" /> rejected God&#8217;s purpose<n id="3" /> for themselves, because they had not been baptized<n id="4" /> by John.<n id="5" />)<n id="6" />p>

while others were saying that Elijah<n id="1" /> had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had risen.<n id="2" />

You will be betrayed even by parents,<n id="1" /> brothers, relatives,<n id="2" /> and friends, and they will have some of you put to death.

<t /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;But when you see Jerusalem<n id="1" /> surrounded<n id="2" /> by armies, then know that its<n id="3" /> desolation<n id="4" /> has come near.

It<n id="1" /> had been revealed<n id="2" /> to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die<n id="3" /> before<n id="4" /> he had seen the Lord&#8217;s Christ.<n id="5" />

<p class="bodytext">So John<n id="1" /> said to the crowds<n id="2" /> that came out to be baptized by him, &#8220;You offspring of vipers!<n id="3" /> Who warned you to flee<n id="4" /> from the coming wrath?

But when John rebuked Herod<n id="1" /> the tetrarch<n id="2" /> because of Herodias, his brother&#8217;s wife,<n id="3" /> and because of all the evil deeds<n id="4" /> that he had done,

where for forty days he endured temptations<n id="1" /> from the devil. He<n id="2" /> ate nothing<n id="3" /> during those days, and when they were completed,<n id="4" /> he was famished.

<p class="bodytext">When<n id="1" /> John&#8217;s messengers had gone, Jesus<n id="2" /> began to speak to the crowds about John: &#8220;What did you go out into the wilderness<n id="3" /> to see? A reed shaken by the wind?<n id="4" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">Now Herod<n id="1" /> the tetrarch<n id="2" /> heard about everything that was happening, and he was thoroughly perplexed,<n id="3" /> because some people were saying that John<n id="4" /> had been raised from the dead,

<t /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hidden place<n id="1" /> or under a basket,<n id="2" /> but on a lampstand, so that those who come in can see the light.

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;Now<n id="1" /> the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham&#8217;s side.<n id="2" /> The<n id="3" /> rich man also died and was buried.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">At<n id="1" /> the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel<n id="2" /> before he was conceived in the womb.p>

As for the seed that<n id="1" /> fell among thorns, these are the ones who hear, but<n id="2" /> as they go on their way they are choked<n id="3" /> by the worries and riches and pleasures of life,<n id="4" /> and their fruit does not mature.<n id="5" />