Luke 16:16-23

¹⁶The laws that God gave Moses and what the prophets MTY wrote were ◄ in effect/what you needed to obey► until John the Baptizer came. Since then I have been preaching about how God wants to rule people's lives in a new way, and many people are accepting that message and very eagerly asking God to control their lives. But that does not mean that God has abolished the laws that he established previously.

¹⁷All of God's laws, even those that seem insignificant, are more permanent than heaven and earth.

¹⁸For example, because God considers that a marriage lasts until either the husband or the wife dies, he considers that any man who divorces his wife and marries another woman is committing adultery. He also considers that any man who marries a woman who has been divorced by her husband {whose husband has divorced her} is also committing adultery.”

¹⁹Jesus also said MET, “Once there was a rich man who wore expensive purple linen garments. He ate luxuriously every day.

²⁰And every day a poor man whose name was Lazarus was laid { some people also laid a poor man whose name was Lazarus} at the gate of the rich man's house. Lazarus' body was covered with sores.

²¹He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the scraps of food that fell from the table where the rich man ate. Furthermore, to make things worse, dogs came and licked his sores.

²²Eventually the poor man died. Then he was taken by the angels {the angels took him} to start feasting next to his ancestor Abraham. The rich man also died, and his body was buried { some people buried his body}.

²³In the place where dead people wait for God to judge them, he was suffering great pain. He looked up and saw Abraham far away, and he saw Lazarus sitting close to Abraham.