The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says a public school district in New Jersey broke the law when it fired a substitute teacher who gave a middle school student a Bible.

The federal agency said that Walt Tutka was illegally fired in 2013 after he gave a Bible to a student who approached him privately and asked where “the first will be last and the last will be first” was written.

Tutke told Fox News the situation began in October 2012 when he held the door open for students rushing to be first for lunch.  He told the last student in line “just remember, the first will be last and the last will be first.”

The student then approached Tutke several times asking where that phrase was written.  Tutke looked it up and told the student where in the Bible it was located but the student wanted to find it for themselves.

“I thought that was going to be the end of it, but it wasn’t,” Tutka said. “He continued to speak with me until one day I happened to have my Bible with me right during lunch. It hit me when he stopped me and I said, ‘Look, here it is right here. Here you go.

“It was a gift,” Tutka added. “[He] said [he] didn’t have one; [he] wanted one.”

The EEOC said “there is reasonable cause to believe that respondent has discriminated against [the] charging party on the basis of religion and retaliation.”