²⁶ “If anyone comes to Me, and does not ^[a]hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life [in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God]—he cannot be My disciple.

²⁸ For which one of you, when he wants to build a watchtower [for his guards], does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to finish it?

²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is unable to finish [the building], all who see it will begin to ridicule him,

³¹ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one who is coming against him with twenty thousand?

³³ So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not [carefully consider the cost and then for My sake] ^[a]give up all his own possessions.

³⁴ “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword [of division between belief and unbelief].^{(A) 35} For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; ³⁶ and a man’s enemies will be the members of his [own] household [when one believes and another does not].^(B)

³⁷ “^[a]He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.^(C)

²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother ^[a]or children or farms for My name’s sake will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.