People can not hide the truth
1While Jesus was talking, a lot of people came to Him. There were more than 1 000 people and they pushed against each other. Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You must beware of the Pharisees. They are false but you can not always see how bad they are. They are like yeast in bread. 2People try to hide it when they are false, but God will show it to everyone. They do things in secret, but God will tell everyone what they have done. 3The same will happen when you tell the people the Good_News about Me. You say things about Me in the dark because you are afraid. But God will let everyone know what you have said when it is day and the sun shines. And you say things about Me to someone that only he can hear, no other person. But God will let everyone know what you have said. People will stand on the roofs of houses and they will shout it out so that everyone can hear it.’
Fear God, and don't be afraid of people
4Jesus said: ‘My friends, don't be afraid of people. They can only kill your body but then they can do nothing more to you. 5No, you must be afraid only of God. He can destroy your body and your soul in hell, and then you will really be dead, forever. Yes, I tell you: You must be afraid only of God.
6You can buy 5 little birds for 2 copper_coins. They are very cheap. But your Father in heaven will not forget one of those little birds. 7You are more important to God than a lot of birds. God knows how many hairs are on every person's head. That is why you must not be afraid of people.’
The disciples must tell people about Jesus
(Also in Matthew 10:32-33; 12:32; Mark 3:29; 13:11; Luke 21:14-15; John 14:26)
8Jesus said: ‘If you tell other people that you belong to Me, then I will also tell my Father in heaven that you belong to Me. 9But if you are afraid to tell people that you belong to Me, then I will tell my Father in heaven that you do not belong to Me. 10If someone says something bad against Me, the Son of man, God will forgive him, but if anyone says something bad against the Holy_Spirit, God will never forgive him.
11If the people arrest you and take you to the synagogues or to the judges in court, then you must not worry about what you must say. God will tell you what you must say. 12The Holy_Spirit will give you the words that you must say.’
The parable of the rich fool
13There was a crowd of people and one of them said to Jesus: ‘Teacher, tell my brother to give me some of the money that he inherited from our father.’ 14But Jesus said to him: ‘I did not come to be a judge over people or to decide how much each of you must get.’
15Then Jesus told the people: ‘You must be careful. Your life will not be better if you have lots of things that are not important for your life.’ 16Then Jesus told them a parable. He said:
‘There was a very rich man who had lots of wheat on his farm. Then his people started to cut the wheat 17and the man said to himself: “What will I do? I have so much wheat that I do not have enough place where I can put all my wheat away.”
18And then the man said: “I know what I will do. I will break down my store rooms and build new big store rooms. Then I will have enough place to store all my wheat and my other things. 19And then I will say to myself: “‘Now I have enough wheat and things for many years. Now I can stop working and I can rest. I can eat and drink and enjoy life.”’ ”
20But God said to the man: “You are a fool. You will die tonight. And all the things that you have put away will not help you. Who will get it now?”
21This is what happens to people who store everything for themselves. This is what happens to people who have nothing of the things that God wants to give to them.’
Do not worry about your life
22Jesus said to his disciples: ‘That is why I tell you: Don't worry about how you will live or what you will eat and drink. And do not worry about your body, or about the clothes that you must wear. 23Your life is more important than your food and your body is more important than your clothes. 24Look at the birds. They don't sow wheat or cut it off. They do not pick fruit and put it in store rooms. But your Father in heaven gives them food every day. And you are more important than the birds. 25It will not help if you worry. You will not live longer, not one hour longer. 26You can not make your life longer, so why do you worry about all the other things?
27Look at the flowers in the field. They do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you: King Solomon was rich and he had beautiful clothes, but his clothes were not as beautiful as one of these flowers. 28God made all the beautiful plants in the field, but they do not live for a long time. They grow today and tomorrow they die and someone throws them into the fire. God will take better care of you than of the plants. Why do you have such little faith?
29Do not worry and do not ask: “Will we have food to eat? Will we have something to drink?” Do not worry about these things. 30Only people who don't know God worry about these things. Your Father knows that you need all these things. 31No, the most important thing for you must be that God is your King. If you believe that He is your King, then He will also give you all these other things. 32Yes, you are a small group of people, but you must not be afraid, because your Father wants to be your King. 33It will be better if you sell all your things and give the money to poor people, then you will be rich in heaven and later you will be there with God. In heaven thieves can not steal and moths can not eat your things. 34The things in heaven where God is must be the most important to you, then you will always think of God in heaven.’
Servants must always be ready
(Also in Matthew 24:36-51; Mark 13:32-37)
35‘You must always be prepared to do something that the Lord wants you to do. You must be like lamps that are always burning. 36You must also be like servants who are waiting for their master to come back from the feast at a wedding. When the master comes home and knocks on the door, they immediately open the door for him. 37The servants who are not sleeping when the master comes will be very happy. I tell you this and it is sure: The master will tell them to sit at the table and he will start to serve them. 38Yes, those servants will be very happy if they are prepared when their master comes, and he comes very late at night or early in the morning and he sees his servants are awake.
39The owner of a house does not know when a thief will try to get into his house to steal his things. If he knew what time the thief would come, he would not be sleeping. 40You must always be ready because you do not know when I, the Son of man, will come.’
41Peter asked Jesus: ‘Lord, have You told this parable only to us, or is it for all the people?’
42Then the Lord said:
‘I want to tell you what a wise servant, who does what his master wants, is like. The master chooses one of his servants and makes him the manager over all the other servants. He must give them food every day while the master is away. 43When the master comes back and the manager is busy doing the work that his master gave him to do, that manager will be very happy. 44I tell you this and it is sure: The master will make that servant the manager of all the things that the master has.
45But if the servant thinks his master will stay away for a long time or that his master will not come back, then maybe he will start to beat the other servants and eat and drink wine with bad people who are always drunk. 46And one day when the master of that servant comes back, he will surprise that bad servant who did not think that the master would come back on that day and at that time. Then the master will punish that bad servant very hard. He will punish him as God will punish all the people who do not serve Him.
47There are slaves who know what their master wants, but they don't do it. They are not ready when he comes. The master will punish those slaves very hard. 48But there are slaves who don't know what their master wants. If they do wrong, the master will not punish them very hard. If God has been good to you, He wants you to serve Him. But if He has been very good to you, He wants you to serve Him even better.’
People will not have peace. They will have trouble
49Jesus said: ‘I came to bring fire on earth and I wish that the fire had already started burning. 50God will let Me suffer a lot and I will worry and be afraid until it happens. 51Don't think that I came to bring peace on earth. I came and now people will be enemies of each other. 52A family of 5 will fight with each other: 2 of them will fight against the other 3. 53Fathers and their sons will fight against each other and mothers and daughters will also fight against each other. Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law will fight against each other.’
People must understand what God is doing
54Jesus told the people: ‘When you see a cloud in the west, you immediately say: “It will rain.” And you are right. It rains. 55And when you see the southern wind blowing, you say: “It will be very hot today.” And it is hot that day. 56You understand a lot of things and you can see the signs in the sky, but you don't understand the things that are happening now. You do not want to understand the signs that are coming from God. You are hypocrites. 57You know what the right thing is. Why don't you do it? 58If someone wants to take you to court, you must make peace with him before you go into court. If you don't make peace with him, he will give you over to the judge and the judge will give you to the guards and they will put you in jail. 59I tell you: You will not come out of jail. You will first have to pay everything that you have, every copper_coin, before you get out.’
