New Testament in a Year

²³ Someone asked him, “Will only a few be saved?”

And he replied, ^24-25 “The door to heaven is narrow. Work hard to get in, for the truth is that many will try to enter but when the head of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. Then if you stand outside knocking, and pleading, ‘Lord, open the door for us,’ he will reply, ‘I do not know you.’

²⁶ “‘But we ate with you, and you taught in our streets,’ you will say.

²⁷ “And he will reply, ‘I tell you, I don’t know you. You can’t come in here, guilty as you are. Go away.’

²⁸ “And there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth as you stand outside and see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets within the Kingdom of God— ²⁹ for people will come from all over the world to take their places there. ³⁰ And note this: some who are despised now will be greatly honored then; and some who are highly thought of now will be least important then.”

³¹ A few minutes later some Pharisees said to him, “Get out of here if you want to live, for King Herod is after you!”

³² Jesus replied, “Go tell that fox that I will keep on casting out demons and doing miracles of healing today and tomorrow; and the third day I will reach my destination. ³³ Yes, today, tomorrow, and the next day! For it wouldn’t do for a prophet of God to be killed except in Jerusalem!

³⁴ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! The city that murders the prophets. The city that stones those sent to help her. How often I have wanted to gather your children together even as a hen protects her brood under her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. ³⁵ And now—now your house is left desolate. And you will never again see me until you say, ‘Welcome to him who comes in the name of the Lord.’”