Old/New Testament

Jesus now despatches thirty-five couples to preach and heal the sick

10 Later on the Lord commissioned seventy other disciples and sent them off in twos as advance-parties into every town and district where he intended to go.

² “There is a great harvest,” he told them, “but only a few are working in it—which means you must pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send out more reapers.

^3-7 “Now go on your way. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Don’t carry a purse or a pair of shoes, and don’t stop to pass the time of day with anyone you meet on the road. When you go into a house, say first of all, ‘Peace be to this household!’ If there is a lover of peace there, he will accept your words of blessing, and if not, they will come back to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink whatever they put before you—a workman deserves his wages. But don’t move from one house to another.

^8-12 Whatever town you go into and the people welcome you, eat the meals they give you and heal the people who are ill there. Tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is very near to you now.’ But whenever you come into a town and they will not welcome you, you must go into the streets and say, ‘We brush off even the dust of your town from our feet as a protest against you. But it is still true that the kingdom of God has arrived! I assure you that it will be better for Sodom in ‘that day’ than for that town.

^13-15 Alas for you, Chorazin, and alas for you, Bethsaida! For if Tyre and Sidon had seen the demonstrations of God’s power that you have seen, they would have repented long ago and sat in sackcloth and ashes. It will be better for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you! As for you, Capernaum, are you on your way up to heaven? I tell you, you will go hurtling down among the dead!”

¹⁶ Then he added to the seventy, “Whoever listens to you is listening to me, and the man who has no use for you has no use for me either. And the man who has no use for me has no use for the one who sent me!”

Jesus tells the returned missioners not to be enthusiastic over mere power

¹⁷ Later the seventy came back full of joy. “Lord,” they said, “even evil spirits obey us when we use your name!”

^18-20 “Yes,” returned Jesus, “I was watching and saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning! It is true that I have given you the power to tread on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the enemy’s power—there is nothing at all that can do you any harm. Yet it is not your power over evil spirits which should give such joy, but the fact that your names are written in Heaven.”

Jesus prays aloud to his Father

^21-22 At that moment Jesus himself was inspired with joy, and exclaimed, “O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, I thank you for hiding these things from the clever and the intelligent and for showing them to mere children! Yes, I thank you, Father, that this was your will.” Then he went on, “Everything has been put in my hands by my Father; and nobody knows who the Son really is except the Father. Nobody knows who the Father really is except the Son—and the man to whom the Son chooses to reveal him!”

^23-24 Then he turned to his disciples and said to them quietly, “How fortunate you are to see what you are seeing! I tell you that many prophets and kings have wanted to see what you are seeing but they never saw it, and to hear what you are hearing but they never heard it.”