The First Commandment

²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”^{(A) 29} Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;^{(B) 30} you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”^{(C) 32} Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’;^{(D) 33} and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”^{(E) 34} When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.^(F)

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.^{(A) 19} Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit^{(B) 20} and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”^[a]

The Call of Matthew

⁹ As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

¹⁰ And as he sat at dinner^[a] in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting^[b] with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”^{(A) 12} But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”^(B)

The Question about Fasting

¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often,^[c] but your disciples do not fast?”^{(C) 15} And Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.^{(D) 16} No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷ Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are ruined, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

²² Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way. ²³ For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,^{(A) 25} nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.^{(B) 26} From one ancestor^[a] he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,^{(C) 27} so that they would search for God^[b] and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.^{(D) 28} For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

²⁹ “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.^{(F) 30} While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,^{(G) 31} because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”^(H)

³² When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” ³³ At that point Paul left them. ³⁴ But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.^{(A) 7} If you know me, you will know^[a] my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”