Luke 17

Forgive your brother

Jesus said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come!a ²It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.b ³Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.c

⁴Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”d

Increase our faith

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”e ⁶And the Lord answered, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.f ⁷Which of you whose servant comes in from plowing or shepherding in the field will say to him, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?

⁸Instead, won’t he tell him, ‘Prepare my meal and dress yourself to serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? ⁹Does he thank the servant because he did what he was told? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”g

The ten lepers

¹¹While Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As He entered one of the villages, He was met by ten lepers. They stood at a distanceh ¹³and raised their voices, shouting, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” ¹⁴When Jesus saw them, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were on their way, they were cleansed.

¹⁵When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice.i ¹⁶He fell facedown at Jesus’ feet in thanksgiving to Him—and he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷“Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked. “Where then are the other nine?j

¹⁸Was no one found except this foreigner to return and give glory to God?” ¹⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well!”

The coming of the kingdom

²⁰When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. ²¹Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”k ²²Then He said to the disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.

²³People will tell you, ‘Look, there He is!’ or ‘Look, here He is!’ Do not go out or chase after them. ²⁴For just as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other, so will be the Son of Man in His day.l ²⁵But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

²⁶Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man: ²⁷People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. ²⁸It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

²⁹But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. ³⁰It will be just like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed. ³¹On that day, let no one on the housetop come down to retrieve his possessions. Likewise, let no one in the field return for anything he has left behind.

³²Remember Lot’s wife!m ³³Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.n ³⁴I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed: One will be taken and the other left.o

³⁵Two women will be grinding grain together: One will be taken and the other left.” ³⁶“Where, Lord?” they asked. Jesus answered, “Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.”