Then Jesus called the crowd to him once more and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

And he said to them all, "If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me.

As all the people listened to him, Jesus said to his disciples,

So if your hand makes you lose your faith, cut it off ! It is better for you to enter life without a hand than to keep both hands and go off to hell, to the fire that never goes out.

And if your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off ! It is better for you to enter life without a foot than to keep both feet and be thrown into hell.

And if your eye makes you lose your faith, take it out! It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell.

So if your right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell.

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose one of your limbs than to have your whole body go off to hell.

"Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it.

But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.

"Do your best to go in through the narrow door; because many people will surely try to go in but will not be able.

Those who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples.

In the same way," concluded Jesus, "none of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have.

We who are strong in the faith ought to help the weak to carry their burdens. We should not please ourselves.

For Christ did not please himself. Instead, as the scripture says, "The insults which are hurled at you have fallen on me."

So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.

I am a free man, nobody's slave; but I make myself everybody's slave in order to win as many people as possible.

But all those things that I might count as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ's sake.

That grace instructs us to give up ungodly living and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this world,

Jesus looked straight at him with love and said, "You need only one thing. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me."

Those who do not take up their cross and follow in my steps are not fit to be my disciples.

As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus' cross.

He went out, carrying his cross, and came to "The Place of the Skull," as it is called. (In Hebrew it is called "Golgotha.")

They strengthened the believers and encouraged them to remain true to the faith. "We must pass through many troubles to enter the Kingdom of God," they taught.

And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.

Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.

For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings.

To this very moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are clothed in rags; we are beaten; we wander from place to place;

when we are insulted, we answer back with kind words. We are no more than this world's garbage; we are the scum of the earth to this very moment!

My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this.

so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires.

As for me, however, I will boast only about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; for by means of his cross the world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world.

All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death,

And now I am happy about my sufferings for you, for by means of my physical sufferings I am helping to complete what still remains of Christ's sufferings on behalf of his body, the church.

You must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions, and greed (for greed is a form of idolatry).

We say this because we hear that there are some people among you who live lazy lives and who do nothing except meddle in other people's business.

Since Christ suffered physically, you too must strengthen yourselves with the same way of thinking that he had; because whoever suffers physically is no longer involved with sin.

Rather be glad that you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may be full of joy when his glory is revealed.

Don't be afraid of anything you are about to suffer. Listen! The Devil will put you to the test by having some of you thrown into prison, and your troubles will last ten days. Be faithful to me, even if it means death, and I will give you life as your prize of victory.

But because my servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land

I took the kingdom away from David's descendants and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who was completely loyal to me, obeyed my commands, and did only what I approve of.

"Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me."

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

"Where are you going, Lord?" Simon Peter asked him. "You cannot follow me now where I am going," answered Jesus; "but later you will follow me."

"Lord, why can't I follow you now?" asked Peter. "I am ready to die for you!"

(In saying this, Jesus was indicating the way in which Peter would die and bring glory to God.) Then Jesus said to him, "Follow me!"

Peter turned around and saw behind him that other disciple, whom Jesus loved---the one who had leaned close to Jesus at the meal and had asked, "Lord, who is going to betray you?"

Let us, then, go to him outside the camp and share his shame.

I know that I shall soon put off this mortal body, as our Lord Jesus Christ plainly told me.

This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for others!