4th Sunday of Matthew

Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. ²⁸God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers? ³⁰Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret? ³¹But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.

¹If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, ⁵doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; ⁶doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

When he came into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking him for help, ⁶saying, “Lord, my servant lies in the house paralyzed, grievously tormented.”

⁷Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

⁸The centurion answered, “Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹For I am also a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and tell another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and tell my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to those who followed, “Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel. ¹¹I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, ¹²but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹³Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.” His servant was healed in that hour.