4th Sunday of Matthew

Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

¹⁹I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. ²⁰For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²²But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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.