Daily Text and Bible Reading: Tuesday, November 4 [Press play below]

Luke Chapter 10

10.1 After these things the Lord designated 70 others and sent them out by twos ahead of him into every city and place where he himself was to go.

10.2 Then he said to them: “Yes, the harvest is great, but the workers are few. Therefore, beg the Master of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.

10.3 Go! Look! I am sending you out as lambs in among wolves.

10.4 Do not carry a money bag or a food pouch or sandals, and do not greet anyone along the road.

10.5 Wherever you enter into a house, say first: ‘May this house have peace.’

10.6 And if a friend of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if there is not, it will return to you.

10.7 So stay in that house, eating and drinking the things they provide, for the worker is worthy of his wages. Do not keep transferring from house to house.

10.8 “Also, wherever you enter into a city and they receive you, eat what is set before you

10.9 and cure the sick ones in it and tell them: ‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’

10.10 But wherever you enter into a city and they do not receive you, go out into its main streets and say:

10.11 ‘We wipe off against you even the dust that sticks to our feet from your city. Nevertheless, know this, that the Kingdom of God has come near.’

10.12 I tell you that it will be more endurable for Sodom in that day than for that city.

10.13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! because if the powerful works that have taken place in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

10.14 Consequently, it will be more endurable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.

10.15 And you, Capernaum, will you perhaps be exalted to heaven? Down to the Grave you will come!

10.16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me. And whoever disregards you disregards me also. Moreover, whoever disregards me disregards also Him who sent me.”

10.17 Then the 70 returned with joy, saying: “Lord, even the demons are made subject to us by the use of your name.”

10.18 At that he said to them: “I see Satan already fallen like lightning from heaven.

10.19 Look! I have given you the authority to trample underfoot serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing at all will harm you.

10.20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are made subject to you, but rejoice because your names have been written in the heavens.”

10.21 In that very hour he became overjoyed in the holy spirit and said: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have carefully hidden these things from wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children. Yes, O Father, because this is the way you approved.

10.22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son is willing to reveal him.”

10.23 With that he turned to the disciples and told them privately: “Happy are the eyes that see the things you are seeing.

10.24 For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see the things you are observing but did not see them, and to hear the things you are hearing but did not hear them.”

10.25 Now look! a man versed in the Law stood up to test him and said: “Teacher, what do I need to do to inherit everlasting life?”

10.26 He said to him: “What is written in the Law? How do you read?”

10.27 In answer he said: “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength and with your whole mind’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”

10.28 He said to him: “You answered correctly; keep doing this and you will get life.”

10.29 But wanting to prove himself righteous, the man said to Jesus: “Who really is my neighbor?”

10.30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell victim to robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went off, leaving him half-dead.

10.31 Now by coincidence a priest was going down on that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

10.32 Likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the opposite side.

10.33 But a certain Samaritan traveling the road came upon him, and at seeing him, he was moved with pity.

10.34 So he approached him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he mounted him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

10.35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said: ‘Take care of him, and whatever you spend besides this, I will repay you when I return.’

10.36 Who of these three seems to you to have made himself neighbor to the man who fell victim to the robbers?”

10.37 He said: “The one who acted mercifully toward him.” Jesus then said to him: “Go and do the same yourself.”

10.38 Now as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village. Here a woman named Martha received him as a guest in her house.

10.39 She also had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the feet of the Lord and kept listening to what he was saying.

10.40 Martha, on the other hand, was distracted with attending to many duties. So she came to him and said: “Lord, does it not matter to you that my sister has left me alone to attend to things? Tell her to come and help me.”

10.41 In answer the Lord said to her: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and disturbed about many things.

10.42 A few things, though, are needed, or just one. For her part, Mary chose the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Chapter 11

11.1 Now he was in a certain place praying, and when he stopped, one of his disciples said to him: “Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”

11.2 So he said to them: “Whenever you pray, say: ‘Father, let your name be sanctified. Let your Kingdom come.

11.3 Give us each day our bread according to our daily needs.

11.4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is in debt to us; and do not bring us into temptation.’”

11.5 Then he said to them: “Suppose one of you has a friend and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves,

11.6 because one of my friends has just come to me on a journey and I have nothing to offer him.’

11.7 But that one replies from inside: ‘Stop bothering me. The door is already locked, and my young children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.’

11.8 I tell you, even if he will not get up and give him anything because of being his friend, certainly because of his bold persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

11.9 So I say to you, keep on asking, and it will be given you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you.

11.10 For everyone asking receives, and everyone seeking finds, and to everyone knocking, it will be opened.

11.11 Indeed, which father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent instead of a fish?

11.12 Or if he also asks for an egg, will hand him a scorpion?

11.13 Therefore, if you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the Father in heaven give holy spirit to those asking him!”

11.14 Later he expelled a speechless demon. After the demon came out, the speechless man spoke, and the crowds were amazed.

11.15 But some of them said: “He expels the demons by means of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

11.16 And others, to test him, began demanding a sign out of heaven from him.

11.17 Knowing their thinking, he said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself comes to ruin, and a house divided against itself falls.

11.18 In the same way, if Satan is also divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say I expel the demons by means of Beelzebub.

11.19 If I expel the demons by means of Beelzebub, by whom do your sons expel them? This is why they will be your judges.

11.20 But if it is by means of God’s finger that I expel the demons, the Kingdom of God has really overtaken you.

11.21 When a strong, well-armed man guards his palace, his belongings remain secure.

11.22 But when someone stronger than he is comes against him and conquers him, that man takes away all his weapons in which he was trusting, and he divides up the things he took from him.

11.23 Whoever is not on my side is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

11.24 “When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through waterless places in search of a resting-place, and after finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I moved.’

11.25 And on arriving, it finds the house swept clean and adorned.

11.26 Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and after getting inside, they dwell there. So the final circumstances of that man become worse than the first.”

11.27 Now as he was saying these things, a woman from the crowd called out to him: “Happy is the womb that carried you and the breasts that nursed you!”

11.28 But he said: “No, rather, happy are those hearing the word of God and keeping it!”

11.29 When the crowds were massing together, he began to say: “This generation is a wicked generation; it looks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.

11.30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of man be to this generation.

11.31 The queen of the south will be raised up in the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But look! something more than Solomon is here.

11.32 The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because they repented at what Jonah preached. But look! something more than Jonah is here.

11.33 After lighting a lamp, a person puts it, not in a hidden place nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light.

11.34 The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is focused, your whole body is also bright; but when it is envious, your body is also dark.

11.35 Be alert, therefore, that the light that is in you is not darkness.

11.36 Therefore, if your whole body is bright with no part of it dark, it will all be as bright as when a lamp gives you light by its rays.”

11.37 When he had said this, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and reclined at the table.

11.38 However, the Pharisee was surprised at seeing that he did not first wash before the dinner.

11.39 But the Lord said to him: “Now you Pharisees, you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greediness and wickedness.

11.40 Unreasonable ones! The one who made the outside made also the inside, did he not?

11.41 But give as gifts of mercy the things that are from within, and look! everything about you will be clean.

11.42 But woe to you Pharisees, because you give the tenth of the mint and of the rue and of every other garden herb, but you disregard the justice and the love of God! These things you were under obligation to do, but not to disregard those other things.

11.43 Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the front seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces!

11.44 Woe to you, because you are as those graves that are not clearly visible, that men walk on and do not know it!”

11.45 In reply one of those versed in the Law said to him: “Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also.”

11.46 Then he said: “Woe also to you who are versed in the Law, because you load men down with loads hard to carry, but you yourselves do not touch the loads with one of your fingers!

11.47 “Woe to you, because you build the tombs of the prophets, but your forefathers killed them!

11.48 Certainly you are witnesses of the deeds of your forefathers, and yet you approve of them, for they killed the prophets but you are building their tombs.

11.49 That is why the wisdom of God also said: ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, and they will kill and persecute some of them,

11.50 so that the blood of all the prophets spilled from the founding of the world may be charged against this generation,

11.51 from the blood of Abel down to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.

11.52 “Woe to you who are versed in the Law, because you took away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not go in, and you hinder those going in!”

11.53 So when he went out from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to put extreme pressure on him and to ply him with many more questions,

11.54 lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.