Luke 12:35-48

35“Be dressed and ready for active service, and keep your lamps continuously burning.

36Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that when he comes and knocks they may immediately open the door for him.

37Blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired) are those servants whom the master finds awake and watching when he arrives. I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he will prepare himself to serve, and will have them recline at the table, and will come and wait on them.

38Whether he comes in the second watch (before midnight), or even in the third (after midnight), and finds them so [prepared and ready], blessed are those servants.

39“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time the thief was coming, he [would have been awake and alert, and] would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

40You too, be continually ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

41Peter said, “Lord, are You addressing this parable to us [disciples], or to everyone else as well?”

42The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward [of the estate], whom his master will put in charge over his household, to give his servants their portion of food at the proper time?

43Blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired) is that servant whom his master finds so doing when he arrives.

44I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

45But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is taking his time in coming,’ and begins to beat the servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk,

46the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

47And that servant who knew his master’s will, and yet did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will be beaten with many lashes [of the whip],

48but the one who did not know it and did things worthy of a beating, will receive only a few [lashes]. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.