"I have much more to tell you, but now it would be too much for you to bear.

"In a little while you will not see me any more, and then a little while later you will see me."

Some of his disciples asked among themselves, "What does this mean? He tells us that in a little while we will not see him, and then a little while later we will see him; and he also says, 'It is because I am going to the Father.'

I will turn my attention to proverbs and explain their meaning as I play the harp.

I am going to use wise sayings and explain mysteries from the past,

so that they can understand the hidden meanings of proverbs and the problems that the wise raise.

Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked him, "Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?"

Jesus answered, "The knowledge about the secrets of the Kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

Jesus used parables to tell all these things to the crowds; he would not say a thing to them without using a parable.

He did this to make come true what the prophet had said, "I will use parables when I speak to them; I will tell them things unknown since the creation of the world."

Then Jesus asked them, "Don't you understand this parable? How, then, will you ever understand any parable?

I did come from the Father, and I came into the world; and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father."

Then his disciples said to him, "Now you are speaking plainly, without using figures of speech.

He has been raised to the right side of God, his Father, and has received from him the Holy Spirit, as he had promised. What you now see and hear is his gift that he has poured out on us.

until I put your enemies as a footstool under your feet.'

Because we have this hope, we are very bold.

Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ.

But it can be removed, as the scripture says about Moses: "His veil was removed when he turned to the Lord."

All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.

We put aside all secret and shameful deeds; we do not act with deceit, nor do we falsify the word of God. In the full light of truth we live in God's sight and try to commend ourselves to everyone's good conscience.