Chapter 3

¹He went again to a synagogue, and there was a man there with one hand withered. ²And they were watching him closely, to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, in order to get a charge to bring against him. ³He said to the man with the withered hand,

“Get up and come forward.”

⁴And he said to them,

“Is it allowable to do people good on the Sabbath, or to do them harm? To save life or kill?” But they made no answer. ⁵And he looked around at them with anger, hurt by their obstinacy, and he said to the man,

“Hold out your hand!”

And he held it out, and his hand was cured. ⁶Then the Pharisees left the synagogue and immediately consulted with the Herodians about Jesus, with a view to putting him to death.

⁷So Jesus retired with his disciples to the seashore, and a great many people from Galilee followed him, and from Judea ⁸and Jerusalem and Idumea and from the other side of the Jordan and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon a great many who had heard of the things he was doing came to him. ⁹He told his disciples to have a boat always ready for his use, to prevent his being crushed by the crowd. ¹⁰For he cured so many people that all who had any ailments pressed up to him to touch him. ¹¹And whenever the foul spirits saw him, they fell down before him and screamed out,

“You are the Son of God!” ¹²And he warned them repeatedly not to tell who he was.

¹³And he went up the hillside and summoned to him those whom he wanted, and they went to him. ¹⁴He appointed twelve of them, whom he called apostles, to be with him and to be sent out to preach, ¹⁵with power to drive out the demons. These were the twelve he appointed: ¹⁶Peter, which was the name he gave to Simon, ¹⁷James the son of Zebedee, and John, James’s brother (he named them Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder), ¹⁸Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home. ²⁰And again the crowd gathered in such numbers that there was no chance for them even to have their meals. ²¹His relatives heard of it and came over to stop him, for they said that he was out of his mind. ²²And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said that he was possessed by Beelzebub and drove out demons by the help of the prince of demons. ²³So he called them to him and spoke to them in figures, saying,

“How can Satan drive Satan out? ²⁴If a kingdom is disunited, that kingdom cannot last. ²⁵And if a household is disunited, that household cannot last. ²⁶And if Satan has rebelled against himself and become disunited, he cannot last but is coming to his end. ²⁷But no one can go into a strong man’s house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strong man; after that he can plunder his house. ²⁸I tell you, men will be forgiven for everything, for all their sins and all the abusive things they say. ²⁹But whoever reviles the holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is guilty of an unending sin.”

³⁰This was because they said, “He is possessed by a foul spirit.”

³¹And his mother and his brothers came. And they stood outside the house and sent word in to him to come outside to them. ³²There was a crowd sitting around him when they told him,

“Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.”

³³He answered,

“Who are my mother and my brothers?”

³⁴And looking around at the people sitting about him, he said,

“Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”