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And he said to them all, "If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget self, take up his cross every day, and follow me. Forwhoever wants to save his own life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, will save it. Will a person gain anything ifhe wins the whole world but is himself lost or defeated? Of course not! If a person is ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Sonof Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels. I assure you that there are some here, who will not die until they have seen the Kingdom of God." As they went on their way, a man said to Jesus, "I will follow you, wherever you go." Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lie down and rest." said to another man, "Follow me." But that other man said, "Sir, let me first go back and bury my father." Jesus answered, "Let the dead bury their own dead. You go and proclaim the Kingdom of God." Another man said, "I will follow you sir; but first let me go and say good-bye to my family. "Jesus said to him, "Anyone who starts to plough and then keeps looking back, is of no use to the Kingdom of God." "I tell you my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot afterwards do anything worse. I will show you whom to fear: fear God, who, after killing, has the authority to throw into hell. Believe me, he is the one you must fear! "Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!" "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom. Sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor. Provide for yourselves purses that don't wear out, and save your riches in heaven, where they will never decrease, because no thief can get to them, and no moth can destroy them. For your heart will always be where your riches are." A Jewish leader asked Jesus, "Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus asked him. "No one is good, except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not accuse anyone falsely; respect your father and your mother.'" The man replied,"Ever since I was young, I have obeyed all these commandments." When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me." But when the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was very rich. Jesus saw that he was sad and said, "How hard it id for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God! It is much harder for the rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." The People who heard him asked, "Who then, can be saved?" Jesus answered, "What is impossible for man is possible for God." Then Peter said, "Look! We have left our homes to follow you." "Yes, " Jesus said to them, "and I assure you, that anyone who leaves home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God will receive much more in this present age and eternal life in the age to come." Some of the disciples were talking about the Temple, how beatiful it looked with its fine stones and the gifts offered to God. Jesus said, "All this you see - the time will come when not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one will be thrown down." "Teacher," they asked, "when will this be? And what will happen in order to show that the time has come for it to take place?" Jesus said, "Be on guard; don't be deceived. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time has come !' But do't follow them. Don't be afraid when you hear of wars and revolutions; such things must happen first, but they do not mean that the end is near." He went on to say, "Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be terrible earthquakes, famines, and plagues everywhere; there will be strange and terrifying things coming from the sky. Before all these things take place, however, you will be arrested and persecuted; you will be handed over to be tried in synagogues and be put in prison; you will be brought before kings and rulers for my sake. This will be your chance to tell the Good News. Make up your minds beforehand not to worry about how you will defend yourselves, because I will give you such words and wisdom that none of your enemies will be able to refute or contradict what you say. You will be handed over by your parents, your brothers, your relatives, and your friends; and some of you will be put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a single hair from your heads will be lost. Stand firm, and you will save yourselves." "Be on your guard! Don't let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you like a trap. For it will come upon all people everywhere on earth. Be on the alert and pray always that you will have the strength to go safely through all those things that will happen and stand before the Son of Man." If you love me, you will obey my commandements. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you for ever. He is the Spirit who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him because he remains with you and is in you. I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit. You have been made clean already by the teaching I have given you. Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains in the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me. "I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me. Whoever does not remain in me is thrown out like a branch and dries up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burnt. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it. My Father's glory is shown by your bearing much fruit; and in this way you become my disciples. I love you just as the Father loves me; remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. This, then, is what I command you: love one another. If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first. If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours too. But they will do all this to you because you are mine; for they do know the one who sent me. They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not come and spoken to them; as it is, they no longer have any excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not done among them the things that no one else ever did; as it is, they have seen what I did, and they hate both me and my Father. This, however, was bound to happen so that what is written in their Law may come true: 'They hated me for no reason at all.' "The helper will come -- the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God and who comes from the Father. I will send him to you from the Father and he will speak about me. And you, too, will speak about me, because you have been with me from the very beginning. "I have told you this, so that you will not give up your faith. You will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time will come when anyone who kills you will think that by doing this he is serving God. People will do this things to you because they have not known either the Father or me. But I have told you this, so that when the time comes for them to do these things, you will remember that I told you.กน |