Study Desk

All who have given up home or brothers and sisters or father and mother or children or land for me will be given a hundred times as much. They will also have eternal life.

As Jesus was telling what the kingdom of heaven would be like, he said: Early one morning a man went out to hire some workers for his vineyard.

After he had agreed to pay them the usual amount for a day's work, he sent them off to his vineyard.

They said, "The ones who were hired last worked for only one hour. But you paid them the same that you did us. And we worked in the hot sun all day long!"

The mother of James and John came to Jesus with her two sons. She knelt down and started begging him to do something for her.

Jesus replied, "You certainly will drink from my cup! But it isn't for me to say who will sit at my right side and at my left. That is for my Father to say."

When Jesus heard them, he stopped and asked, "What do you want me to do for you?"

Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes. Right away they could see, and they became his followers.

Some people walked ahead of Jesus and others followed behind. They were all shouting, "Hooray for the Son of David! God bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hooray for God in heaven above!"

When Jesus got up the next morning, he was hungry. He started out for the city,

If you have faith when you pray, you will be given whatever you ask for."

But when they saw the man's son, they said, "Someday he will own the vineyard. Let's kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves."

So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a king gave a wedding banquet for his son.

But the guests did not pay any attention. Some of them left for their farms, and some went to their places of business.

Then he said to the servants, "It is time for the wedding banquet, and the invited guests don't deserve to come.

When the king went in to meet the guests, he found that one of them wasn't wearing the right kind of clothes for the wedding.

The king asked, "Friend, why didn't you wear proper clothes for the wedding?" But the guest had no excuse.

So the king gave orders for that person to be tied hand and foot and to be thrown outside into the dark. That's where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain.

Let me see one of the coins used for paying taxes." They brought him a silver coin,