Study Desk

"How kind the Lord is!" she exclaimed. "He has taken away my disgrace of having no children."

For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever."

Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say to each other, ‘We're safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.' That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.

"Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

They are like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, ‘We played wedding songs, and you didn't dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn't weep.'

"You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.

"If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.

"The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.

One day some parents brought their little children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But when the disciples saw this, they scolded the parents for bothering him.

Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.

"Yes," Jesus replied, "and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God,

They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you."

They posed this question: "Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife but no children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother's name.

Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children.

Then the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them, who died without children.

And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.

But Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.