Then He began telling an allegory to the ones having been called, noticing how they were choosing the first couches [fig., places of honor], saying to them,
"Whenever you* are invited by someone to marriage feasts, do not recline [to eat] on the first couch [fig., the place of honor], lest a more honorable [person than] you has been invited by him;
and having come, the one having invited you and him, he will say to you, 'Give [your] place to this [person],' and then you begin with shame to be taking the last place.
"_But_ whenever you are invited, having gone, recline [to eat] in the last place, so that whenever the one having invited you comes, he shall say to you, 'Friend, move up higher.' Then [there] will be glory for you before the ones reclining [to eat] with you.
Then He also began saying to the one having invited Him, "Whenever you prepare a lunch or a dinner, do not be calling your friends nor your brothers nor your relatives nor rich neighbors, lest_they_ also invite you back, and [that] shall be your repayment.
and you will be happy [or, blessed], because they do not have [anything] to repay to you, for it will be repaid to you in the resurrection of the righteous."
Then one of the ones reclining [to eat] with [Him], having heard these things, said to him, "Happy [or, Blessed] [is he] who will eat dinner in the kingdom of God."
"And they all began with one [accord] to be excusing themselves. The first said to him, 'I bought a field, and I have a need to go out and to see it. I beg of you, be having me having been excused.'
"And that slave having come, reported these [things] to his lord. Then the master of the house, having been enraged, said to his slave, 'Go out quickly into the open streets and alleys of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and lame and blind.'
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and in addition even his own life, he is not able to be My disciple.
"For which of you*, the one wanting to build a lookout tower, does not first, having sat down, calculate the cost, whether he has the [resources] for [its] completion?
"Or what king going to engage another king in battle, does not, having sat down, first consider if he is able with ten thousand [soldiers] to encounter the one with twenty thousand [soldiers] coming against him?