Mark 10:23-34

²³Jesus looked around at the people. Then he exclaimed to his disciples, “It is very difficult for people who are wealthy to decide to let God rule their lives!”

²⁴The disciples were surprised at what he said. They thought that God favored the rich people, so if God did not save them, he would not save anyone. So Jesus replied again to them, “My dear friends, it is very difficult for anyone to decide to let God rule his life.

²⁵It is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. It is almost as difficult HYP for rich people to decide to let God rule their lives.”

²⁶The disciples were very astonished. So they said to each other, “If that is so, ◄it will be unlikely that anyone will be saved {that God will save anyone}!/will God save anyone?► RHQ”

²⁷Jesus looked at them and then he said, “ Yes, it is impossible for people to save themselves! But God certainly can save them, because God can do anything!”

²⁸Peter exclaimed, “ You know that we have left behind everything and we have become your disciples. So, ◄ what about us/will God ‘accept us/reward us’►?”

²⁹Jesus replied, “I want you to know this: Those who have left their houses, their brothers, their sisters, their father, their mother, their children, or their plots of ground, to be my disciples and to proclaim the good news,

³⁰will receive in this life a hundred times as much as they left behind. That will include houses and people as dear as brothers and sisters and mothers and children, and plots of ground. Furthermore, although people will persecute them here on earth because they believe in me, in the future age they will ◄ have eternal life/live with God eternally►.

³¹But I warn you all: Many of you who now consider yourselves to be very important will be unimportant at that future time, and many of you who now consider yourselves to be unimportant will be very important at that future time!”

³²Some days later as they continued to travel, Jesus and his disciples were walking on the road that leads up to Jerusalem city. Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples/apostles were astonished that he was going to where there were many people who opposed him, and the other people who were with them were afraid about what would happen to him in Jerusalem. Along the way he took the twelve disciples to a place by themselves. Then he began to tell them again about what was going to happen to him, saying,

³³“Listen carefully! We are going up to Jerusalem. There the chief priests and the men who teach the Jewish laws will be enabled {someone will help the chief priests and those who teach our Jewish laws} to seize me. Then they will declare that I must die, even though I am the one who came from heaven. Then they will take me to the Roman authorities.

³⁴Those men will ridicule me. They will spit on me. They will ◄scourge me/whip me with a leaded whip.► Then they will kill me. But on the third day after that, I will become alive again!”