6th Sunday of Matthew

If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³My defense to those who examine me is this: ⁴Have we no right to eat and to drink? ⁵Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? ⁶Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work? ⁷What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn’t eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn’t drink from the flock’s milk?

⁸Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing? ⁹For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it for the oxen that God cares, ¹⁰or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope. ¹¹If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?

¹²If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more? Nevertheless we didn’t use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.

He entered into a boat and crossed over, and came into his own city. ²Behold, they brought to him a man who was paralyzed, lying on a bed. Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, cheer up! Your sins are forgiven you.”

³Behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man blasphemes.”

⁴Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? ⁵For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’? ⁶But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—” (then he said to the paralytic), “Get up, and take up your mat, and go to your house.”

⁷He arose and departed to his house. ⁸But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.