7. Then Jesus noticed that some of the guests were choosing the best places to sit. So he told this story:
8. “When someone invites you to a wedding, don’t sit in the most important seat. They may have invited someone more important than you.
9. And if you are sitting in the most important seat, they will come to you and say, ‘Give this man your seat!’ Then you will have to move down to the last place and be embarrassed.
10. “So when someone invites you, go sit in the seat that is not important. Then they will come to you and say, ‘Friend, move up here to this better place!’ What an honor this will be for you in front of all the other guests.
11. Everyone who makes themselves important will be made humble. But everyone who makes themselves humble will be made important.”
12. Then Jesus said to the Pharisee who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite only your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. At another time they will pay you back by inviting you to eat with them.
13. Instead, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, and the blind.
14. Then you will have great blessings, because these people cannot pay you back. They have nothing. But God will reward you at the time when all godly people rise from death.”
15. One of the men sitting at the table with Jesus heard these things. The man said to him, “It will be a great blessing for anyone to eat a meal in God’s kingdom!”