Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him ^(A)deny himself and ^(B)take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For ^(C)whoever would save his life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For ^(D)what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or ^(E)what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Witnesses to Jesus

^30 (A)“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and ^(B)my judgment is just, because ^(C)I seek not my own will ^(D)but the will of him who sent me.

³⁴ Jesus said to them, ^(A)“My food is ^(B)to do the will of him who sent me and ^(C)to accomplish his work.

^2 (A)Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

^35 (A)For I have come ^(B)to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ^36 (C)And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. ^37 (D)Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ And ^(E)whoever does not take his cross and ^(F)follow me is not worthy of me. ^39 (G)Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

^26 (A)“If anyone comes to me and ^(B)does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, ^(C)yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ^27 (D)Whoever does not ^(E)bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not ^(F)first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not ^(G)sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ^33 (H)So therefore, any one of you who ^(I)does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.