In order to impress more strongly upon His disciples the dreadful consequence of not being ready, when the Lord should come to judge the world, Jesus told them the parable of the Ten Virgins, five of whom were wise, and five foolish. These latter were shut out from the marriage; and Jesus showed how this parable applied to all men, by saying, "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." Again, to show them the necessity of being found at the last day, doing the will of God, and improving the talents committed to our care, Jesus told His disciples another parable of the Servants and the Talents; greatly resembling one spoken before, as given by St. Luke, chap. xix. He likewise showed His disciples, that though here all men seem to go on much alike, so that it is often difficult to know who are really serving God with all their hearts, and who are not, there will be no difficulty in the last day, when the godly and the ungodly shall be as easily divided, "as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats": and that while the Lord would take the one to live with Him for ever, the others should go away into everlasting punishment. Jesus also declared, that one way of gaining the favour of God, was by doing acts of kindness and self-denial, to help our suffering fellow creatures. All these discourses, which followed the last cleansing of the temple, seem to have been uttered on the Tuesday in Passion Week. "And in the day time he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount, that is called the mount of Olives;" at Bethany, as is generally believed. We have now come to the Wednesday in Passion Week, two days before the feast of the Passover, called also the feast of unleavened bread. Jesus, to prepare His disciples for what was about to happen, said unto them, "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." "Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. Then assembled together the Chief Priests and the Scribes, and the elders of the people" (who had long sought to destroy Jesus), "unto the palace of the High Priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted how they might take Jesus by craft and put him to death," without causing any uproar among the people. If once they could contrive to deliver Him up as a prisoner to the Roman governor, there would be no possibility of His being rescued by the people.