Luke 13:1-22

Common English Bible

Demand for genuine change

13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. ²He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? ³No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. ⁴What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? ⁵No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

⁶Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ ⁸The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. ⁹Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”

Healing on a Sabbath

¹⁰Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. ¹¹A woman was there who had been disabled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. ¹²When he saw her, Jesus called her to him and said, “Woman, you are set free from your sickness.” ¹³He placed his hands on her and she straightened up at once and praised God.

¹⁴The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath day.”

¹⁵The Lord replied, “Hypocrites! Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink? ¹⁶Then isn’t it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day?” ¹⁷When he said these things, all his opponents were put to shame, but all those in the crowd rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing.

Growth of God’s kingdom

¹⁸Jesus asked, “What is God’s kingdom like? To what can I compare it? ¹⁹It’s like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in a garden. It grew and developed into a tree and the birds in the sky nested in its branches.”

²⁰Again he said, “To what can I compare God’s kingdom? ²¹It’s like yeast, which a woman took and hid in a bushel of wheat flour until the yeast had worked its way through the whole.”