Gospel according to Luke 17

¹ He said to his disciples, ‘Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them!

² It would be better for him to be thrown into the Sea with a millstone put round his neck than that he should lead astray a single one of these little ones.

³ Watch yourselves!

⁴ And if he wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, “I am sorry”, you must forgive him.’

⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith’.

⁶ The Lord replied, ‘Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.

⁷ ‘Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal immediately”?

⁸ Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards”?

⁹ Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told?

¹⁰ So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty”.’

¹¹ Now on the way to Jerusalem he travelled along the border between Samaria and GaliIee[*a].

¹² As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off

¹³ and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’

¹⁴ When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests’. Now as they were going away they were cleansed.

¹⁵ Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice

¹⁶ and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ This made Jesus say, ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they?

¹⁸ It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.’

¹⁹ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’

²⁰ Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, he gave them this answer, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation

²¹ and there will be no one to say, “Look here! Look there!” For, you must know, the kingdom of God is among you.’

²² He said to the disciples, ‘A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it.

²³ They will say to you, “Look there!” or, “Look here!” Make no move; do not set off in pursuit;

²⁴ for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up the other, so will be the Son of Man when his day comes.

²⁵ But first he must suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation.

²⁶ ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man.

²⁷ People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸ It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,

²⁹ but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all.

³⁰ It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed.

³¹ ‘When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either.

³² Remember Lot’s wife.

³³ Anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe.

³⁴ I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed: one will be taken, the other left;

³⁵ two women will be grinding corn together: one will be taken, the other left.’

³⁷ The disciples interrupted. ‘Where, Lord?’ they asked. He said, ‘Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather’.