The community meal

¹⁷ Now I don’t praise you as I give the following instruction because when you meet together, it does more harm than good. ¹⁸ First of all, when you meet together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it. ¹⁹ It’s necessary that there are groups among you, to make it clear who is genuine. ²⁰ So when you get together in one place, it isn’t to eat the Lord’s meal. ²¹ Each of you goes ahead and eats a private meal. One person goes hungry while another is drunk. ²² Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you look down on God’s churches and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this.

²³ I received a tradition from the Lord, which I also handed on to you: on the night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread. ²⁴ After giving thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this to remember me.” ²⁵ He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.” ²⁶ Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes.

²⁷ This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood. ²⁸ Each individual should test himself or herself, and eat from the bread and drink from the cup in that way.

³³ For these reasons, my brothers and sisters, when you get together to eat, wait for each other.

A servant is healed

7 After Jesus finished presenting all his words among the people, he entered Capernaum. ² A centurion had a servant who was very important to him, but the servant was ill and about to die. ³ When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to Jesus to ask him to come and heal his servant. ⁴ When they came to Jesus, they earnestly pleaded with Jesus. “He deserves to have you do this for him,” they said. ⁵ “He loves our people and he built our synagogue for us.”

⁶ Jesus went with them. He had almost reached the house when the centurion sent friends to say to Jesus, “Lord, don’t be bothered. I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. ⁷ In fact, I didn’t even consider myself worthy to come to you. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. ⁸ I’m also a man appointed under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it.”

⁹ When Jesus heard these words, he was impressed with the centurion. He turned to the crowd following him and said, “I tell you, even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this.” ¹⁰ When the centurion’s friends returned to his house, they found the servant restored to health.