Mark 2–3

Jesus Heals a Paralysed Man

2A few days later Jesus went back to Capernaum, and the news spread that he was at home. ²So many people came together that there was no room left, not even out in front of the door. Jesus was preaching the message to them ³when four men arrived, carrying a paralysed man to Jesus. ⁴Because of the crowd, however, they could not get the man to him. So they made a hole in the roof right above the place where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they let the man down, lying on his mat. ⁵Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the paralysed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶Some teachers of the Law who were sitting there thought to themselves, ⁷“How does he dare to talk like this? This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!”

⁸At once Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, “Why do you think such things? ⁹Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? ¹⁰I will prove to you, then, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralysed man, ¹¹“I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

¹²While they all watched, the man got up, picked up his mat, and hurried away. They were all completely amazed and praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Jesus Calls Levi

¹³Jesus went back again to the shore of Lake Galilee. A crowd came to him, and he started teaching them. ¹⁴As he walked along, he saw a tax collector, Levi son of Alphaeus, sitting in his office. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Levi got up and followed him.

¹⁵Later on Jesus was having a meal in Levi’s house.^e A large number of tax collectors and other outcasts were following Jesus, and many of them joined him and his disciples at the table. ¹⁶Some teachers of the Law, who were Pharisees, saw that Jesus was eating with these outcasts and tax collectors, so they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such people?”

¹⁷Jesus heard them and answered, “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”

The Question about Fasting

¹⁸On one occasion the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and asked him, “Why is it that the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but yours do not?”

¹⁹Jesus answered, “Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to go without food? Of course not! As long as the bridegroom is with them, they will not do that. ²⁰But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

²¹“No one uses a piece of new cloth to patch up an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear off some of the old cloth, making an even bigger hole. ²²Nor does anyone pour new wine into used wineskins, because the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”

The Question about the Sabbath

^23*Jesus was walking through some cornfields on the Sabbath. As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the ears of corn. ²⁴So the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, it is against our Law for your disciples to do that on the Sabbath!”

^25*Jesus answered, “Have you never read what David did that time when he needed something to eat? He and his men were hungry, ^26*so he went into the house of God and ate the bread offered to God. This happened when Abiathar was the High Priest. According to our Law only the priests may eat this bread—but David ate it and even gave it to his men.”

²⁷And Jesus concluded, “The Sabbath was made for the good of human beings; they were not made for the Sabbath. ²⁸So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

The Man with a Paralysed Hand

3Then Jesus went back to the synagogue, where there was a man who had a paralysed hand. ²Some people were there who wanted to accuse Jesus of doing wrong; so they watched him closely to see whether he would heal the man on the Sabbath. ³Jesus said to the man, “Come up here to the front.” ⁴Then he asked the people, “What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save someone’s life or to destroy it?”

But they did not say a thing. ⁵Jesus was angry as he looked round at them, but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and wrong. Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it became well again. ⁶So the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod’s party, and they made plans to kill Jesus.

A Crowd by the Lake

⁷Jesus and his disciples went away to Lake Galilee, and a large crowd followed him. They had come from Galilee, from Judea, ⁸from Jerusalem, from the territory of Idumea, from the territory on the east side of the Jordan, and from the region round the cities of Tyre and Sidon. All these people came to Jesus because they had heard of the things he was doing. ^9*The crowd was so large that Jesus told his disciples to get a boat ready for him, so that the people would not crush him. ^10*He had healed many people, and all those who were ill kept pushing their way to him in order to touch him. ¹¹And whenever the people who had evil spirits in them saw him, they would fall down before him and scream, “You are the Son of God!”

¹²Jesus sternly ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was.

Jesus Chooses the Twelve Apostles

¹³Then Jesus went up a hill and called to himself the men he wanted. They came to him, ¹⁴and he chose twelve, whom he named apostles. “I have chosen you to be with me,” he told them. “I will also send you out to preach, ¹⁵and you will have authority to drive out demons.”

¹⁶These are the twelve he chose: Simon (Jesus gave him the name Peter); ¹⁷James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee (Jesus gave them the name Boanerges, which means “Men of Thunder”); ¹⁸Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Patriot, ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

Jesus and Beelzebul

²⁰Then Jesus went home. Again such a large crowd gathered that Jesus and his disciples had no time to eat. ²¹When his family heard about it, they set out to take charge of him, because people were saying, “He’s gone mad!”

^22*Some teachers of the Law who had come from Jerusalem were saying, “He has Beelzebul in him! It is the chief of the demons who gives him the power to drive them out.”

²³So Jesus called them to him and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴If a country divides itself into groups which fight each other, that country will fall apart. ²⁵If a family divides itself into groups which fight each other, that family will fall apart. ²⁶So if Satan’s kingdom divides into groups, it cannot last, but will fall apart and come to an end.

²⁷“No one can break into a strong man’s house and take away his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man; then he can plunder his house.

²⁸“I assure you that people can be forgiven all their sins and all the evil things they may say.^{f 29*}But whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, because he has committed an eternal sin.” ³⁰(Jesus said this because some people were saying, “He has an evil spirit in him.”)

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers

³¹Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside the house and sent in a message, asking for him. ³²A crowd was sitting round Jesus, and they said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, and they want you.”

³³Jesus answered, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” ³⁴He looked at the people sitting round him and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does what God wants him to do is my brother, my sister, my mother.”