Luke 9:3-30

³he said to them, “Do not take things for your journey. Do not take a walking stick or a traveler's bag or food or money. Do not take ◄an extra shirt/extra clothes►.

⁴Whenever you enter some house to lodge there, stay in that house until you leave that town.

⁵In towns where the people do not welcome you, you should not continue to stay there. Just leave those towns. And as you leave, shake off the dust from your feet. Do that to warn them that God will punish them for rejecting your message.”

⁶Then they left and traveled through many villages. Everywhere they went, they told people God's good message and healed sick people.

⁷Herod Antipas, the ruler of that district, heard about the things that Jesus and his disciples were doing. He had previously commanded his soldiers to execute John the Baptizer, so now he was perplexed, because some people were saying that John had become alive again and was doing those miracles.

⁸Others were saying that the prophet Elijah had appeared again as had been prophesied. Others were saying that one of the other former prophets had become alive again and was doing those miracles.

⁹But Herod said, “ It cannot be John who is doing these things, because I commanded my soldiers to cut off his head. So who is this man that I am hearing these things about?” And he kept wanting to see Jesus.

¹⁰When the apostles returned from traveling to various towns, they told Jesus the things that they had done. Then he took them and they went by themselves by boat to a town called Bethsaida.

¹¹But when the crowds of people who had been with Jesus found out about that, they followed him on land. When they got to where he was, he welcomed them. He taught them about how God is going to some day ◄rule as king/have complete control over people's lives►. He also healed the sick people.

¹²Late in the afternoon Jesus' twelve apostles came to him and said, “This is a place where nobody lives, so dismiss the people so that they can go to the surrounding villages and other places where they can get some food and find places to stay!”

¹³But he said to them, “ No, you yourselves give them something to eat!” They replied, “We (exc) have only five small loaves and two cooked fish. Are you (sg) going to give us the money to go somewhere and buy food for all these people?”

¹⁴There were about five thousand men there. He replied to the disciples, “ No, just tell the people to sit down. Tell them to sit in groups, with about fifty people in each group.”

¹⁵After they told the people that, they all sat down.

¹⁶Then he took the five small loaves and the two fish. He looked up towards heaven and thanked God for them. Then he broke them into pieces and gave them to the disciples so that they would distribute them to the crowd.

¹⁷All the people in the crowd ate until they all had enough to eat. Then the disciples collected twelve baskets full of the broken pieces that were left over!

¹⁸One day Jesus was praying in a place where only the disciples were with him. He asked them, “The crowds of people, who do they say that I really am?”

¹⁹They replied, “ Some people say that you are John the Baptizer, who has come back to life again. Others say that you are the prophet Elijah, who has returned from heaven as God promised. Others say that you are one of the other prophets who lived long ago, who has come back to life again.”

²⁰He asked them, “What about you (pl)? Who do you say that I am?” Peter replied, “You (sg) are the Messiah, who has come from God.”

²¹Then Jesus warned them strongly not to tell that to anyone yet.

²²Then he said, “ Even though I am the one who came from heaven, it is necessary that I suffer very much. It is also necessary that I be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the men who teach the Jewish laws {that the Jewish elders and the chief priests and the men who teach the Jewish laws will reject me}. It is necessary that I be killed {that people will kill me}. Then on the third day after that, I will become alive again.”

²³Then he said to all of them, “If any one of you wants to be my disciple, you must not do only what you yourself desire to do. Specifically, you must be willing each day MET to let others hurt you and disgrace you. That is like what is done to criminals who are forced to carry MET crosses to the place where they will be executed. That is what anyone who wants to be my disciple must do.

²⁴You must do that, because those who try to save their lives by denying that they belong to me when people want to kill them for believing in me will not live eternally, but those who are killed because of being my disciples will live forever with me.

²⁵People might get everything that they want in this world, but ◄they are really gaining nothing if they do not get eternal life by becoming my disciples!/are they really gaining anything if they do not get eternal life by becoming my disciples?► RHQ

²⁶Those who reject my message and refuse to say that they belong to me, I, the one who came from heaven, will also refuse to say that they belong to me when I come back with the holy angels, and have the glorious brightness that my Father has.

²⁷But listen carefully! Some of you (pl) who are here now will see God ruling MET in many powerful ways. You will see it before you die!”

²⁸About a week after Jesus said those things, he took Peter, James, and James' brother John and led them up a mountain so that he could pray there.

²⁹As he was praying, his face appeared very different to them. His clothes became as bright as lightning.

³⁰Suddenly, two men appeared who had the brightness of heaven surrounding them. They were prophets who had lived long ago, Moses and Elijah. They started talking with Jesus about how he would accomplish what God had planned when he died EUP very soon in Jerusalem.