Chapter 4

¹Then Jesus was guided by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. ²And he fasted forty days and nights, and after it he was famished. ³And the tempter came up and said to him,

“If you are God’s son, tell these stones to turn into bread!”

⁴But he answered,

“The Scripture says, ‘Not on bread alone is man to live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God!’ ”

⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the summit of the Temple, ⁶and said to him,

“If you are God’s son, throw yourself down, for the Scripture says,

“ ‘He will give his angels orders about you,

And they will lift you up with their hands

So that you may never strike your foot against a stone!’ ”

⁷Jesus said to him,

“The Scripture also says, ‘You shall not try the Lord your God.’ ”

⁸Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, ⁹and said to him,

“I will give all this to you, if you will fall on your knees and do homage to me.”

¹⁰Then Jesus said to him,

“Begone, Satan! For the Scripture says, ‘You must do homage to the Lord your God, and worship him alone!’ ”

¹¹Then the devil left him, and angels came and waited on him.

¹²But when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he retreated to Galilee. ¹³And he left Nazareth and went and settled in Capernaum, by the sea, in the district of Zebulon and Naphtali, ¹⁴in fulfilment of what was said by the prophet Isaiah,

¹⁵“Zebulon’s land, and Naphtali’s land,

Along the road to the sea, across the Jordan,

Galilee of the nations!

¹⁶The people that were living in darkness

Have seen a great light,

And on those who were living in the land of the shadow of death

A light has dawned!”

¹⁷From that time Jesus began to preach and say,

“Repent! for the Kingdom of Heaven is coming!”

¹⁸As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was afterward called Peter, and his brother, Andrew, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹He said to them,

“Come and follow me, and I will make you fish for men!”

²⁰They immediately dropped their nets and went with him. ²¹And he went on a little farther and saw two other men who were brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother, John, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, putting their nets in order, and he called them. ²²And they immediately left the boat and their father, and went with him.

²³Then he went all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing any disease or sickness among the people. ²⁴Word went all through Syria about him, and people brought to him all who were suffering with any kind of disease, or who were in great pain—demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics—and he cured them. ²⁵Great crowds followed him about, from Galilee and the Ten Towns and Jerusalem and Judea and from the other side of the Jordan.