8. “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place. It could happen that someone more important than you has been invited,
9. and your host, who invited both of you, would have to come and say to you, ‘Let him have this place.’ Then you would be embarrassed and have to sit in the lowest place.
10. Instead, when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that your host will come to you and say, ‘Come on up, my friend, to a better place.’ This will bring you honour in the presence of all the other guests.
11. For all those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.”
12. Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbours — for they will invite you back, and in this way you will be paid for what you did.
13. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind;
14. and you will be blessed, because they are not able to pay you back. God will repay you on the day the good people rise from death.”
15. When one of the men sitting at table heard this, he said to Jesus, “How happy are those who will sit down at the feast in the Kingdom of God!”
16. Jesus said to him, “There was once a man who was giving a great feast to which he invited many people.
17. When it was time for the feast, he sent his servant to tell his guests, ‘Come, everything is ready!’
18. But they all began, one after another, to make excuses. The first one told the servant, ‘I have bought a field and must go and look at it; please accept my apologies.’
19. Another one said, ‘I have bought five pairs of oxen and am on my way to try them out; please accept my apologies.’
20. Another one said, ‘I have just got married, and for that reason I cannot come.’
21. “The servant went back and told all this to his master. The master was furious and said to his servant, ‘Hurry out to the streets and alleys of the town, and bring back the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
22. Soon the servant said, ‘Your order has been carried out, sir, but there is room for more.’