Samaritan – The Green Tau

Third Sunday of Lent

8th March 2026

Reflection with readings below

In the reading from Exodus, the people are up in arms that they don’t have enough fresh water to drink. Quite rightly so. They know how important water is. Without water they will not survive.

Do we know what is important for life – or do we get distracted by populist issues such as wifi speed, foreign travel, journey times between London and Manchester, how many asylum seekers are occupying cheap hotel rooms, or the availability of strawberries in January?

Equally do we get up in arms about what is truly important? Are we more concerned about the love-lives of pop stars or the fate of prisoners? The domestic arrangements of the royal family or the plight of steel workers in Wales? The most recent diatribe from Nigel Farage or waiting times in our local A and E?

Returning to the necessity of water, how many of us are aware that Tehran is about to run out of drinking water? How many of us are concerned about the amount of water needed to cool AI data centres here in the UK?

The UK already faces a projected daily water deficit of nearly 5 billion litres by 2050 – which doesn’t include what might be needed by as yet to be built data centres. Might we expect agriculture to take precedence over data processing?

Water shortages re not just a UK issue, but a global issue. Across the world we are collectively consuming fresh water faster than supplies can be replenished! How many of us are outraged at the amount of water needed to make a cheap t shirt – worn today and thrown away tomorrow? Or how many of us are outraged that so much water is used to grow crops for cattle to eat so that ever greater quantities of meat can be consumed?

If nothing else, maybe their time in the wilderness taught the Hebrews that they couldn’t just expect water to be readily available at the drop of a hat – or a stick! More precisely they would have learnt that their access to water was dependent on their understanding their relationship with God. They should expect to go through life – or through the wilderness – without engaging in a real and trusting relationship with God.

God, as creator, is the source of the wisdom we need to live sustainably, securely, happily within the limits of creation. We are not gods. We cannot make creation conform to our demands. We have to live within the limitations of the created world. We cannot consume more water than the world can supply. We cannot discharge more pollution than the environment can absorb. We cannot take more resources from the earth than the earth can sustain.

Where are our contemporary prophets, who, like Moses, will challenge us to think rationally, who will challenge us to understand our dependency on God? Where are the preachers, the thinkers and writers, who will help us understand how God wishes to – and indeed does – relate with us, and the rest of creation? Are we ready to ‘kneel before the Lord our maker and listen to his voice’?

We can, nevertheless, draw consolation from the fact that God does not require us to be sinless for God to love us. What ever the state of our stupidity, our greed, our misplaced self-assurance, God is always willing to pay heed to our concerns, to afford us her wisdom, to show us a way forward. But we do have to want to engage with God – and that surely is what we mean by faith: the desire to be guided by God, to be in a relationship with God, to trust that God does indeed have answers to our problems. That is faith.

The Samaritan woman had the means of taking water out of the well. She could do this day in, day out – for as long as there was water in the well. What she hadn’t understood was that water like everything else was a gift that God had given her so that she might understand the universal nature of God, so that she might replicate God’s actions by sharing what was freely given so that all might benefit, that this water might enable eternal life not just for her and her tribe, but for everyone.

Like the Samaritan woman, we, even now in the 21st century, have a lot to learn about the life giving properties of water, and most particularly that those properties depend upon water being properly cherished and shared – to understand that all water is holy.

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Psalm 95

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.

5 The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have moulded the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

8 Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.

10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
“This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways.”

11 So I swore in my wrath, *
“They shall not enter into my rest.”

Romans 5:1-11

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person– though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”

Green Tau: issue 110

16th July 2025

Are there limits to loving our neighbour?

On Sunday I reflected on the day’s gospel story of the Good Samaritan and the principle of integrity. Jesus and the lawyer are both in agreement that to love God with all your being and to love your neighbour is to fulfil the Law. The lawyer however wanted clarity so asks, Who is my neighbour? Jesus, rather than give an answer that would define ‘neighbour’ to a certain group of people or to a certain set of relationships, tells the story of the Good Samaritan and then asks who was a neighbour to the one who fell among thieves – to which the answer was the Samaritan. Jesus is telling the lawyer don’t worry about who your neighbour is, but rather think about what it is to be a neighbour. To be a neighbour is to show mercy – loving kindness – to the one in need. And that is clearly our calling as Christians. But does it still beg the question, which neighbours? Some or all of them?

Does Jesus really expect us to show loving kindness to everyone in need?

I guess there is the limitation that the commandment says to love your neighbour as yourself – which might mean love your neighbour with all your capacity but when your capacity runs out, then take a break and pass the loving responsibility onto a fellow neighbour.

And I guess another limitation would be the extent of your knowledge: it would be hard to specifically show loving kindness to the person one hasn’t heard of or whose situation remains unknown to you. But clearly from the parable, just ignoring someone in need does not put that person outside the relationship of neighbour.

So yes, I think Jesus does expect us to show loving kindness to anyone in need as far as we have teh capacity to act.

For decades, there have been individuals and groups who have been concerned for the plight of Palestinians in the former Holy Land. People who have been concerned for the lack of justice experienced by and shown to the Palestinians. For many of us, our understanding has been minimal. The issue had not been in the forefront of the news or in lessons at school or in the word on the street. Maybe we choose not to know. But since the terror attack in October 2023, the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza has been clearly visible – splashed across newsreel and newspapers. And increasingly so – but not as prominently – there has been some focus on the injustices being faced by Palestinians living in the West Bank.

These persecuted people – as much as the hostages held by Hamas – are our neighbours, all of whom we are called to love. There are clearly practical limits to helping people who live thousands of miles away, within national borders through which we would struggle to gain access. And our lack of knowledge of what help is needed would be an issue. Too often we in the West assume we know all the answers.

Nevertheless there are clearly things we can do. Prayer may seem an easy option out, but regular committed prayer Sunday by Sunday in our churches, day by day in our homes is an act of love. Donating to appeals organised by organisations such as Christian Aid and Oxfam is an act of love. Joining marches to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause is an act of love. Boycotting products produced by companies and organisations that support the persecution of Palestinians is an act of love. Writing to our MPs and government officials asking that our nation intervene to stop the fighting; asking that UK businesses should not continue to supply arms and infrastructure to support the aggression; asking that our government intervenes when international law is broken and when aid is withheld; asking our government to show support when international law is invoked – these are acts of love.

What if prayer led to a proposal that the Church of England should take action?

In 2021, “On Saturday 9th of October 60 members of the Church of England gathered together under the leadership of the Bishop of Carlisle, The Rt Revd James Newcome for their autumn Diocesan Synod meeting. Members included clergy and lay people. On their agenda was a motion passed by Solway Deanery, calling on the Church of England to be more proactive in its support and solidarity with Palestinian Christians.” (1) (For the full text of the motion see below).

The motion was passed unopposed.

Four years later the Kairos Palestine motion finally made its way onto the agenda of General Synod. In response to the change in circumstances between 2021 and 2025, a revised motion was put before the Carlisle Diocesan Synod. It was debated and was passed with a 59/7 majority. It was then also endorsed by Sheffield Diocese.

Subsequent to that vote by the Carlisle Diocesan Synod, the motion was dropped from the agenda for July’s General Synod, meeting in York. For those who knew this – and I’m guessing it wasn’t known of by the majority of church-goers – this was shocking and pointed to a lack of integrity by an organisation that seeks to follow the teachings of Jesus, and in particular the command to love our neighbour.

I joined a number of fellow Christians outside York University’s Senate House where the General Synod debates were taking place. We held a large banner “Love calls you to be in solidarity with the crucified Palestinian people.” We laid out on the pavement a series of photographs of Palestinians with brief comments and quotes. We arranged a keffiyeh on which we placed a candle and a cross, bread rolls, a dish of dates and a cup of water. We listened to readings and prayers. heard a recording of voices reading out some of the names of the dead. We observed a half hour silence under the midday sun. We handed out leaflets and spoke to passers-by.

Why was this happening? Why would the Church not even discuss this issue, let alone take action? Or was this just what people expected of the Church of England is? Aloof, unconcerned, focused on ritual and convention?

On the Sunday – again with banner and placards and leaflets – we gathered outside York Minster where members of the General Synod were arriving for the main Sunday’s Eucharist. Some acknowledged our presence, said thank you and even stood with us. Some took a leaflet en passant. Most smiled or looked away as they carried on passing by on the other side. A few openly challenged the validity of the protest.

When the service began we did go inside, wanting to pray and be part of this corporate act of worship. The preacher – Bishop Andrew from Hong Hong – took as the gospel as his theme, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, emphasising that our neighbour may even be our enemy. Did those who listened find this message prophetic or ironic?

Is it that the Church of England has reached the limit of its capacity? Is it trying to do too much? Or is focusing to much on things that are not important? Do its church members need to do more?

Appendix

The motion, presented by Solway Deanery member Valerie Hallard, read as follows:

That This Synod

Endorses the “Cry for Hope”[1] expressed by Palestinian Christians and the ‘Global Kairos for Justice’ coalition[2] (GKfJ);
Requests that the Faith and Order Commission produce a report which analyses and refutes any theological justifications, for example, those promoted by some Christian Zionists, for the oppression of Palestinians.
Instructs the Ethical Investment Advisory Group to provide guidance to the National Investing Bodies (NIBs) and Dioceses that will enable them to screen their investments and thereby make decisions regarding engagement with, and divestment from, companies which profit from the occupation.

The revised motion read:

“That this Synod responds to the call of Palestinian Christians to stand in solidarity with them and their fellow Palestinians in non-violent resistance to the ongoing occupation. We lament the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives and the violations of human dignity and rights on both sides, as well as the displacement of population. We commit to a better understanding of the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, seeking peace and security for all the peoples of those lands and pursuing that which leads to the establishment of a just and lasting peace.

In particular, we:

1.Reject anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment and all forms of prejudice based on religious affiliation and ethnicity.

2. Pray for all victims of the current conflicts in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory and for a lasting peace;

3. Receive the Kairos Palestine Declaration (2009), the Cry for Hope(2020), and the Call for Repentance (2023) as heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians and:

a) Encourage the Church of England at all levels to engage with those documents as part of a quest for greater understanding of the situation;

b) Ask the the Faith and Public Life Division to commend resources that enable Dioceses and local churches to promote a full understanding of the situation and to respond through prayer, theological study, advocacy and practical support for the work undertaken by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and other Churches in the service of the people of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory;

4. Call on the National Investing Bodies to review their investment policies in the light of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on the illegality of the occupation of Palestinian territory, and to:

i) disinvest from any entity or corporation with a persistent, on-going, and direct business involvement in severe human rights violations or violations of international law as part of Israel’s military occupation;

ii) provide advice and guidance to the Dioceses to review their investments; and

iii) report back to General Synod accordingly.

5. Ask His Majesty’s Government to work urgently for a lasting peace in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, that will ensure safety and security for all parties and the upholding of the rights and inherent dignity of all people.” (2)

https://www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk/carlisle-diocese-passes-historic-cry-for-hope-motion/#more-8919

(2) https://www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk/updated-kairos-palestine-motion-moves-forward-to-general-synod/

Fourth Sunday After Trinity, Proper 10

13th July 2025

Reflection with readings below

“As we seek to… be faithful to our baptism, let us reflect on what challenges to our faithfulness and integrity the coming hours may bring, and pause respectfully before the many unknowns of our future.” – from the book of Uncommon Prayer.

Today’s gospel has the famous story of the Good Samaritan but the story begins not with the Samaritan but with a lawyer who wants to a) outwit Jesus, and b) to demonstrate his own righteousness. The conversation proceeds – and in this Gospel’s telling of the story, it is Jesus’s protagonist who declares that the Law – the means to eternal life – is summed up in the two commandments that you should love God with all your being and love your neighbour as yourself. The lawyer (perhaps because he is a lawyer) wants to tease out the scope of these commands and so asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’

But Jesus, rather than answering the question, invites the young man to consider what it is to be a good neighbour. For what the lawyer must do to be a good neighbour is of more importance that who or who not should merit his love. In the Kingdom of God, ‘everyone is my neighbour’.

To be a good neighbour is to show mercy – ie loving kindness – to those in need.

This brings is to the questions raised by the above prayer: how might our faithfulness and integrity be challenged by the coming hours?

The first reading from Amos is all about measuring faithfulness and integrity. A plumb line is a length of string to which twine end is attached a weight. By holding the top and letting the string hang, weighed down by the weight, you have a perfectly vertical line with which you can judge whether a wall has been built true to the vertical. And if it hasn’t, then like the house built on sand in Jesus’s parable, it is going to fall down! In this passage, Amos is being asked by God to challenge the northern kingdom of Israel as to their faithfulness and integrity in building their nation in accordance with God’s ways, for God has found them to have fallen short. This failure to build properly will lead to the terminal breakdown of the nation with destruction and loss of land and buildings, and death and exile of its people.

As many protesters (modern prophets calling out the lack on integrity and action re the genocide in Gaza, the illegal settlement of Palestinian lands, climate crisis and the injustice which it highlights, biodiversity loss and the misuse of the Earth’s resources…) today know, their’s are voices that those in authority wish to silence, their’s are the causes people want to ignore, they are the individuals wrongly imprisoned, and in some countries, the ones who will be brutally murdered.

So let us pause and reflect whether we will be good neighbours today. And if we feel timid or ill-prepared, let us pray for the empowerment of God’s Spirit and the guidance of Jesus’s example.

Let us pause and reflect whether the institutions we belong to – including the church – will act with integrity. Let us pause and reflect whether our government, our nation, will act with integrity. Let us pause and reflect whether international companies and organisations will act with integrity.

And if not let us be prophet and call out the injustices we see.

Postscript

Practical ways of expressing our faith and integrity re the awful crisis affecting Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank

Pray
Become better informed about the history of Palestine
Fast in solidarity with Palestinians
Support campaign groups such as Sabeel-Kairos, Christians for Palestine, Christian Aid etc
Writing to your MP, ask for action such as banning the export of any arms to Israel, and the recognition of the Palestinian State
Boycott companies linked to the Israeli state and human rights abuses.
Donate to one of the many organisations providing aid for Palestinians, including planting olive trees
Buy Palestinian products, eg from Zaytoun

https://www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk/category/about-israelpalestine/

https://embraceme.org/fast-for-gaza

https://balfourproject.eaction.org.uk/RecognisePalestine

https://www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk/

https://www.christianaid.ie/our-work/where-we-work/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territory-iopt

https://www.facebook.com/p/Christians-for-Palestine-UK-61555041637853/

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethical-campaigns-boycotts/palestine-boycott-list

Experience the great taste of palestine

Amos 7:7-17

This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by;

the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said,

`Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.'”

And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, `Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

“Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.

You say, `Do not prophesy against Israel,
and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

Therefore thus says the Lord:

`Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
and your land shall be parcelled out by line;

you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.'”

Psalm 82

1 God takes his stand in the council of heaven; *
he gives judgment in the midst of the gods:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly, *
and show favour to the wicked?

3 Save the weak and the orphan; *
defend the humble and needy;

4 Rescue the weak and the poor; *
deliver them from the power of the wicked.

5 They do not know, neither do they understand;
they go about in darkness; *
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 Now I say to you, ‘You are gods, *
and all of you children of the Most High;

7 Nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, *
and fall like any prince.'”

8 Arise, O God, and rule the earth, *
for you shall take all nations for your own.

Colossians 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”