1 One Sabbath, when he went to eat a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.
2 And right there in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy.
3 Jesus responded by asking the experts in the law and the Pharisees, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"
4 But they said nothing. So he took hold of the man, healed him, and sent him on his way.
5 Then he said to them, "Which of you, if his donkey or his ox falls into a well, will not pull it out right away on the Sabbath day?"
6 And they had no answer to give to this.
7 He told a parable to the guests when he observed how they were picking out the places of honor:
8 "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by him,
9 and the host who invited you both comes and tells you, 'Give this man your seat,' and then, embarrassed, you have to go and take the lowest place.
10 Instead, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up higher.' Then you will be honored in front of those who are at the table with you.
11 For everyone who lifts himself up will be brought low, and the one who brings himself low will be lifted up."
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you host a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or wealthy neighbors; they might invite you back, and you would be repaid.
13 Instead, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind,
14 and you will be blessed, since they have nothing to repay you with. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."
15 Hearing this, one of those at the table with him said to him, "Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!"
16 Jesus said to him, "A man was giving a great dinner and invited many guests.
17 At dinnertime he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, because everything is ready now.'
18 But one after another they all began to excuse themselves. The first told him, 'I have bought a field, and I need to go out and look at it. Please consider me excused.'
19 Another said, 'I have bought five pairs of oxen, and I am on my way to try them out. Please consider me excused.'
20 Another said, 'I have just married, and so I am unable to come.'
21 The servant came back and told his master these things. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out at once into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.'
22 The servant said, 'Master, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.'
23 So the master told the servant, 'Go out to the roads and the hedgerows and press people to come in, so that my house will be full.
24 For I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.'"
25 Large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them,
26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life as well, he cannot be my disciple.
27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.
28 Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?
29 Otherwise, after laying the foundation and being unable to finish, everyone who sees it will start making fun of him,
30 saying, 'This fellow started to build and could not finish.'
31 Or what king, setting out to fight against another king, will not first sit down and think it over, whether with ten thousand he can face the one marching against him with twenty thousand?
32 If he cannot, he sends envoys while the other is still far away and asks what the terms of peace are.
33 In the same way, then, none of you who does not say farewell to all his possessions can be my disciple.
34 "Salt is good; but if salt becomes tasteless, how will its saltiness be restored?
35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure heap; it gets thrown away. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."