See Verse / Commentary

Mark

Several days later Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word spread that he was there. So many people crowded inside the house that there was no room, even outside the door, as Jesus was preaching the Gospel-Word to them. Four men brought a man who was paralyzed, but they could not get close to Jesus because of the crowd. So they took the roof apart and through the opening lowered the mat down with the paralyzed man lying on it. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the religious teachers sitting there were thinking to themselves, “Why is this man speaking like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins except God alone?” Jesus immediately knew in his spirit what they were thinking, and asked them, “Why are you thinking like this? Which is easier: to say to the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? But so that you may be convinced that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins,” he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.” He got up, immediately picked up his mat, and walked out in front of everyone. They were all astonished and praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this before!” Jesus returned to the sea shore, and was teaching the whole crowd that was coming to him. As he walked by, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him. Levi got up and followed him. That evening Jesus ate dinner at Levi’s house. Many tax collectors and “sinners” joined Jesus and his disciples for the meal, because there were many of these “sinners” who were following Jesus. When the religious leaders of the Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with such people, they asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but people who are sick do. I did not come to call upright people, but sinners.” John’s disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a religious fast. They came to Jesus and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not?” Jesus said to them, “How can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. “No one sews a new patch on old clothes. Otherwise the new piece will shrink away from the old, and make a worse tear. No one puts new wine in old wineskins. Otherwise the wine bursts the skins, and both the wine and skins are ruined. No, you put new wine in new wineskins.” Jesus was walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples started picking grain as they walked along. The Pharisees asked Jesus, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus replied, “Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry — how he went into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and gave it to his men to eat as well? The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Mark