14. blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
15. One of his fellow guests on hearing this said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the kingdom of God.”
16. He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.
17. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’
18. But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’
19. And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’
20. And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’
21. The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
22. The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’
23. The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.
24. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
25. Great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and addressed them,
26. “If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
27. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.