Luke 14:14-30

¹⁴and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

¹⁵When one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

¹⁶But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; ¹⁷and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ ¹⁸But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ ¹⁹Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ ²⁰Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ ²¹And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²²And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. ²⁴For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

²⁵Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, ³⁰saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’