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Gospel Reading - Every hair has been counted

²⁴A student is not greater than his teacher. A servant is not above his master. ²⁵ The student shares his teacher’s fate. The servant shares his master’s! And since I, the master of the household, have been called ‘Satan,’^a how much more will you! ²⁶But don’t be afraid of those who threaten you. For the time is coming when the truth will be revealed: their secret plots will become public information.

²⁷“What I tell you now in the gloom, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ears, proclaim from the housetops!

²⁸“Don’t be afraid of those who can kill only your bodies — but can’t touch your souls! Fear only God who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Not one sparrow (What do they cost? Two for a penny?) can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. ³⁰And the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So don’t worry! You are more valuable to him than many sparrows.

³²“If anyone publicly acknowledges me as his friend, I will openly acknowledge him as my friend before my Father in heaven. ³³But if anyone publicly denies me, I will openly deny him before my Father in heaven.

³⁴“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, rather, a sword. ³⁵I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — ³⁶a man’s worst enemies will be right in his own home!

1. See 9:34 where they call him this.