Chapter 2

¹Some days later he came back to Capernaum, and people heard that he was at home, ²and such a crowd gathered that after a while there was no room even around the door, and he was telling them his message. ³And some people came bringing to him a man who was paralyzed, four of them carrying him. ⁴As they could not get him near Jesus on account of the crowd, they broke open the roof just over his head, and through the opening they lowered the mat with the paralytic lying on it. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic,

“My son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶There were some scribes sitting there pondering and saying to themselves,

⁷“Why does this man talk so? This is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸Jesus, at once perceiving by his spirit that they were pondering over this, said to them,

“Why do you ponder over this in your minds? ⁹Which is easier, to say to this paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say to him, “Get up and pick up your mat and walk’? ¹⁰But to let you know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” turning to the paralytic he said, ¹¹“I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

¹²And he got up, and immediately picked up his mat and went out before them all, so that they were all astonished and acknowledged the power of God, saying,

“We never saw anything like this before.”

¹³He went out of the town again and along the shore, and all the people came to him and he taught them.

¹⁴And as he was passing along he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tollhouse, and he said to him,

“Follow me.”

And he got up and followed him.

¹⁵He was at table in his house, with many tax-collectors and irreligious people who were at table with him and his disciples, for there were many of them among his followers. ¹⁶And when the scribes who were of the Pharisees’ party saw that he was eating with irreligious people and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples,

“Why does he eat with tax-collectors and irreligious people?”

¹⁷Jesus heard it, and said to them,

“It is not well people but the sick who have to have the doctor. I did not come to invite the pious but the irreligious.”

¹⁸Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast. And people came and asked him,

“Why is it that when John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are keeping the fast, yours are not keeping it?”

¹⁹Jesus said to them,

“Can wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. ²⁰But a time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and when that day comes, they will fast. ²¹No one sews a patch of unshrunken cloth on an old coat; or if he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and makes the hole worse than ever. ²²And no one pours new wine into old wine-skins; or if he does, the wine bursts the skins, and the wine is lost, and the skins too. New wine has to be put into fresh skins.”

²³He happened to be passing through the wheat fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples began to pick the heads of wheat as they made their way through. ²⁴And the Pharisees said to him,

“Look! Why are they doing what it is against the law to do on the Sabbath?”

²⁵He said to them,

“Did you never read what David did, when he was in need and hungry, he and his men? ²⁶How is it that he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the Presentation Loaves, which it is against the law for anyone but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions too?”

²⁷And he said to them,

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, ²⁸and so the Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath.”