Mark 3:7–30

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

^7lJesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and ^ma great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸and Jerusalem and ⁿIdumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around ^oTyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹And he told his disciples to ^phave a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they ^qcrush him, ¹⁰for ^rhe had healed many, so that all who had ^sdiseases pressed around him ^tto touch him. ^11uAnd whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they ^vfell down before him and cried out, “You are ^wthe Son of God.” ¹²And ^xhe strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The Twelve Apostles

^13yAnd he went up on the mountain and called to him those ^zwhom he desired, and they came to him. ^14yAnd he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ^15yand have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶He appointed the twelve: ^aSimon (to whom ^bhe gave the name Peter); ^17cJames the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and ^dMatthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot,^{2 19}and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

²⁰Then he went ^ehome, and the crowd gathered again, ^fso that they could not even eat. ^21gAnd when ^hhis family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He ⁱis out of his mind.”

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

²²And ^jthe scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ^k“He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” ^23lAnd he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. ²⁷But ^mno one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. ⁿThen indeed he may plunder his house.

^28o“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, ²⁹but whoever ^pblasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”