Study Desk

It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.

It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night.

It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.

"Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?

Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any.

So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'

" 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it.

and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'

In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him,

If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.

It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.

So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.