Luke 17:11-25

¹¹After that Jesus kept going along the road to the city called Jerusalem, going from Galilee country into Samaria country.

¹²He came to a community, and he started to go into it, but 10 men met him there. They all had a bad skin sickness, so they didn’t come close to Jesus, but they stood a little way from him and shouted to him.

¹³They said, “Jesus, Sir, please be sorry for us.”

¹⁴Jesus looked at them and said, “All right. Go to the leaders of our Jewish ceremonies and let them look at you skin.” So they started to go to those ceremony leaders, and while they were walking along they got better. Their skin was good again.

¹⁵One of them looked at his skin and saw that it was good again, so he turned around and came back to Jesus. He shouted, “God is really good and really great.”

¹⁶And he got down on his knees in front of Jesus, to show him respect, and said, “Thank you, Sir.” This man was not a Jew, like Jesus and his followers, but he came from the Samaria tribe.

¹⁷Jesus asked the man, “I made 10 men better, didn’t I? Where are the other 9 men?”

¹⁸Then he said, “None of the Jewish men came back to say thank you to God. Only this man from another country did that.”

¹⁹Then Jesus said to the man, “You can stand up now and go home. You believed in me, so now you are better.”

²⁰At one time some of the law men called Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will God come and start his family here on the earth, and be the boss of his people?” Jesus said, “You will not see anything different when God starts his family here. People can’t see it happen.

²¹Nobody will say, ‘Look, everyone, God is the boss here,’ or, ‘Look over there and you will see that God is the boss there.’ No, it is not like that. You see, God is already getting people into his family right now. His family is right here among you mob.”

²²Then Jesus said to his followers, “The time will come when you will really want to see me, God’s special man from heaven. You will want to see me again, but you will not see me at that time.

²³People will say to you, ‘Look, there he is, over there,’ or they might say, ‘Here he is, over here.’ But don’t take any notice of them. Don’t try to find me.

²⁴You see, I am God’s special man from heaven, and when I come back I will be like the lightning. You know the way it flashes really bright, and everyone can see it. Well, I will be like that. Everyone will see me.

²⁵But first, before that happens, the people that are alive today will reckon they don’t want me to be their boss, and they will hurt me a lot.