Luke 5:27–39

Levi Called to Follow Jesus

²⁷And after these things, he went out and saw a tax collector named^j Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me!” ²⁸And leaving everything behind, he got up and^* began to follow^* him.

²⁹And Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining for the meal with them. ³⁰And the Pharisees and their scribes began to complain^* to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹And Jesus answered and^* said to them, “Those who are healthy do not have need of a physician, but those who are sick.^{k 32}I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

On Fasting

³³And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and make prayers—likewise also the disciples^* of the Pharisees—but yours are eating and drinking!” ³⁴So he^* said^l to them, “You are not able to make the bridegroom’s attendants^m fast as long as the bridegroom is with them, are you?^{* 35}But days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” ³⁶And he also told a parable to them: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and^* puts it^* on an old garment. Otherwise, he will have torn the new also, and the old will not match the patch that is from the new. ³⁷And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the wineskins, and it will be spilled and the wineskins will be destroyed. ³⁸But new wine must be put into new wineskins. ³⁹And no one after^* drinking old wine^* wants new, because he says, ‘The old is just fine!’ ”