Study Desk

So you should obey and follow whatever they tell you, but their lives are not good examples for you to follow. They tell you to do things, but they themselves don't do them.

"They do good things so that other people will see them. They enlarge the little boxes holding Scriptures that they wear, and they make their special prayer clothes very long.

How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites. You take away widows' houses, and you say long prayers so that people will notice you. So you will have a worse punishment.]

So I tell you this: I am sending to you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will beat in your synagogues and chase from town to town.

So you will be guilty for the death of all the good people who have been killed on earth—from the murder of that good man Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berakiah, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar.

There will be more and more evil in the world, so most people will stop showing their love for each other.

"So always be ready, because you don't know the day your Lord will come.

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at a time you don't expect him.

"So while the five foolish bridesmaids went to buy oil, the bridegroom came. The bridesmaids who were ready went in with the bridegroom to the wedding feast. Then the door was closed and locked.

"So always be ready, because you don't know the day or the hour the Son of Man will come.

The servant who was given five bags of gold brought five more bags to the master and said, ‘Master, you trusted me to care for five bags of gold, so I used your five bags to earn five more.'

"Then the servant who had been given two bags of gold came to the master and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of gold to care for, so I used your two bags to earn two more.'

So I was afraid and went and hid your money in the ground. Here is your bag of gold.'

So you should have put my gold in the bank. Then, when I came home, I would have received my gold back with interest.'

"So the master told his other servants, ‘Take the bag of gold from that servant and give it to the servant who has ten bags of gold.

So Jesus left them and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing.

But all these things have happened so that it will come about as the prophets wrote." Then all of Jesus' followers left him and ran away.

The leading priests and the whole Jewish council tried to find something false against Jesus so they could kill him.

Judas, the one who had given Jesus to his enemies, saw that they had decided to kill Jesus. Then he was very sorry for what he had done. So he took the thirty silver coins back to the priests and the leaders,

So Judas threw the money into the Temple. Then he went off and hanged himself.