Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 359
20:8-28
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“That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them,
beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o’clock were
paid, each received a full day’s wage. When those hired first came to get
their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid
a day’s wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner,
‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as
much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’
“He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you
agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted
to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what
I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’
“So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first
will be last.”
As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside
privately and told them what was going to happen to him. “Listen,” he
said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed
to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence
him to die. Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked,
flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised
from the dead.”
Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus
with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. “What is your request?”
he asked.
She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of
honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”
But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are
asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about
to drink?”
“Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”
Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup. But I have
no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. My Father has prepared
those places for the ones he has chosen.”
When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked,
they were indignant. But Jesus called them together and said, “You know
that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt
their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and
whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even
the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his
life as a ransom for many.”
