Chapter 10

¹Then he called his twelve disciples to him, and gave them power over the foul spirits so that they could drive them out, and so that they could heal any disease or illness.

²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, ³Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector, James the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus, ⁴Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot who afterward betrayed him.

⁵Jesus sent these twelve out, after giving them these directions:

“Do not go among the heathen, or to any Samaritan town, ⁶but proceed instead to the lost sheep of Israel’s house. ⁷And as you go about, preach and say, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, heal lepers, drive out demons. Give without payment, just as you received without payment. ⁹Do not accept gold or silver or copper money to put in your pockets, ¹⁰and do not take a bag for your journey, nor two shirts, nor shoes, nor a staff, for the workman deserves his food! ¹¹Whatever town or village you come to, inquire for some suitable person, and stay with him till you leave the place. ¹²And as you go into his house, wish it well. ¹³If the house deserves it, the peace you wish it will come over it, but if it does not deserve it, your blessing will come back upon yourselves. ¹⁴And where no one will welcome you, or listen to you, leave that house or town and shake off its very dust from your feet. ¹⁵I tell you, the land of Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better on the Day of Judgment than that town.

¹⁶“Here I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. So you must be wise like serpents, and guileless like doves. ¹⁷But be on your guard against men, for they will give you up to their courts, and have you flogged in their synagogues, ¹⁸and you will be brought before governors and kings on my account, to bear your testimony before them and the heathen. ¹⁹But when they give you up, you must have no anxiety about how to speak or what to say, for you will be told at the very moment what you ought to say, ²⁰for it is not you who will speak, it is the Spirit of your Father that will speak through you. ²¹One brother will give up another to death, and a father his child, and children will turn against their parents, and have them put to death. ²²You will be hated by everybody on my account, but the man who holds out to the very end will be saved. ²³But when they persecute you in one town, make your escape to another, for I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man arrives. ²⁴A pupil is not better than his teacher, nor a slave better than his master. ²⁵A pupil should be satisfied to come to be like his teacher, or a slave, to come to be like his master. If men have called the head of the house Beelzebub, how much worse names will they give to the members of his household! ²⁶So do not be afraid of them. For there is nothing covered up that is not going to be uncovered, nor secret that is not going to be known. ²⁷What I tell you in the dark you must say in the light, and what you hear whispered in your ear, you must proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Have no fear of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. You had better be afraid of one who can destroy both soul and body in the pit. ²⁹Do not sparrows sell two for a cent? And yet not one of them can fall to the ground against your Father’s will! ³⁰But the very hairs on your heads are all counted. ³¹You must not be afraid; you are worth more than a great many sparrows! ³²Therefore everyone who will acknowledge me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven, ³³but anyone who disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

³⁴“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. ³⁵For I have come to turn a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, ³⁶and a man’s enemies will be in his own household. ³⁷No one who loves father or mother more than he loves me is worthy of me, and no one who loves son or daughter more than he loves me is worthy of me, ³⁸and no one who will not take up his cross and follow me is worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever gains his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes him who has sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will have the same reward as a prophet, and whoever welcomes an upright man because he is upright will have the same reward as an upright man. ⁴²And no one who will give the humblest of my disciples even a cup of cold water because he is my disciple, I tell you, can ever fail of his reward.”