⁸ You will always have the poor among you,^[a](A) but you will not always have me.”

¹¹ There will always be poor people^(A) in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.^(B)

⁷ The poor you will always have with you,^[a] and you can help them any time you want.^(A) But you will not always have me.

³³ “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.^(A)

³⁵ Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light^(A) just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light,^(B) before darkness overtakes you.^(C) Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going.

¹¹ The poor you will always have with you,^[a](A) but you will not always have me.

⁹ After he said this, he was taken up^(A) before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

¹⁰ They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white^(B) stood beside them. ¹¹ “Men of Galilee,”^(C) they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back^(D) in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Dispute Over Who Jesus Is

²¹ Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die^(A) in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”^(B)

⁵ but now I am going to him who sent me.^(A) None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’^{(B) 6} Rather, you are filled with grief^(C) because I have said these things. ⁷ But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate^(D) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.^(E)