Luke 5:27–38

Jesus Chooses Levi

²⁷After this, Jesus left the house. He saw a tax collector sitting at the tax booth. The man’s name was Levi.

“Follow me,” Jesus said to him.

²⁸Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹Then Levi gave a huge dinner for Jesus at his house. A large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. ³⁰But the Pharisees and their teachers of the law complained to Jesus’ disciples. They said, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”

³¹Jesus answered them, “Those who are healthy don’t need a doctor. Sick people do. ³²I have not come to get those who think they are right with God to follow me. I have come to get sinners to turn away from their sins.”

Jesus Is Asked About Fasting

³³Some of the people who were there said to Jesus, “John’s disciples often pray and go without eating. So do the disciples of the Pharisees. But yours go on eating and drinking.”

³⁴Jesus answered, “Can you make the guests of the groom go without eating while he is with them? ³⁵But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them. In those days they will fast.”

³⁶Then Jesus gave them an example. He said, “People don’t tear a patch from new clothes and sew it on old clothes. If they do, they will tear the new clothes. Also, the patch from the new clothes will not match the old clothes. ³⁷People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will burst the skins. The wine will run out, and the wineskins will be destroyed. ³⁸No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.