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25 [a]There was a scholar of the law[b] who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”(A) 26 Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” 27 He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”(B) 28 He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 10:25–37 In response to a question from a Jewish legal expert about inheriting eternal life, Jesus illustrates the superiority of love over legalism through the story of the good Samaritan. The law of love proclaimed in the “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:27–36) is exemplified by one whom the legal expert would have considered ritually impure (see Jn 4:9). Moreover, the identity of the “neighbor” requested by the legal expert (Lk 10:29) turns out to be a Samaritan, the enemy of the Jew (see note on Lk 9:52).
  2. 10:25 Scholar of the law: an expert in the Mosaic law, and probably a member of the group elsewhere identified as the scribes (Lk 5:21).