Chronological

Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers

¹¹ One day, Jesus^[a] was traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee on the way to Jerusalem. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and shouted, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

¹⁴ When Jesus^[b] saw them, he told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” While they were going, they were made clean. ¹⁵ But one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, came back and praised God with a loud voice. ¹⁶ He fell on his face at Jesus’^[c] feet and thanked him. Now that man^[d] was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Ten men were made clean, weren’t they? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Except for this foreigner, were any of them found to return and give praise to God?” ¹⁹ Then he told the man,^[e] “Get up, and go home! Your faith has saved you.”^[f]

The Coming of the Kingdom^(A)

²⁰ Once Jesus^[g] was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come. He answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with a visible display. ²¹ People^[h] won’t be saying, ‘Look! Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ because now the kingdom of God is among^[i] you.”

²² Then Jesus^[j] told the disciples, “The time will come during which you will long to see one of these days when the Son of Man is with you,^[k] but you won’t see it. ²³ People^[l] will say to you, ‘Look! There he is!’ or ‘Look! Here he is!’ But don’t go and chase after him. ²⁴ Because just as lightning flashes and shines from one end of the sky to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his time.^{[m] 25} But first he must suffer a great deal and be rejected by those living today.^[n]

²⁶ “Just as it was in Noah’s time, so it will be in the Son of Man’s time. ²⁷ People^[o] were eating, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage right up to the day when Noah went into the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed all of them. ²⁸ So it was in Lot’s time. People^[p] were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. ²⁹ But on the very day when Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed all of them. ³⁰ The day when the Son of Man is revealed will be like that.

³¹ “The person who is on the housetop that day must not come down to get his belongings out of his house. The person in the field, too, must not turn back to what’s left behind. ³² Remember Lot’s wife! ³³ Whoever tries to save his life^[q] will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it. ³⁴ I tell you, two will be seated on the same couch^[r] that night. The one will be taken, and the other will be left behind. ³⁵ Two women will be grinding grain^[s] together. The one will be taken, and the other will be left behind.”^[t]

³⁷ Then they asked him, “Where, Lord, will this take place?”^[u]

He told them, “Wherever there’s a corpse, that’s where the vultures^[v] will gather.”

The Parable about the Judge and the Widow

18 Jesus^[w] told his disciples^[x] a parable about their need to pray all the time and never give up. ² He said, “In a city there was a judge who didn’t fear God or respect people. ³ In that city there was also a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ ⁴ For a while the judge^[y] refused. But later, he told himself, ‘I don’t fear God or respect people, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice. Otherwise, she will keep coming and wear me out.’”

⁶ Then the Lord added, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. ⁷ Won’t God grant his chosen people justice when they cry out to him day and night? Is he slow to help them? ⁸ I tell you, he will give them justice quickly. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The Parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

⁹ Jesus^[z] also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves, thinking they were righteous, but who looked down on everyone else: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘O God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—thieves, dishonest people, adulterers, or even this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of my entire income.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even look up to heaven. Instead, he continued to beat his chest and said, ‘O God, be merciful to me, the sinner that I am!’^{[aa] 14} I tell you, this man, rather than the other one, went down to his home justified, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the person who humbles himself will be exalted.”