Mark 2

¹When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, word spread that he was at home. ²So many people gathered that there was no longer any room, not even near the doorway, as he was speaking the Word to them. ³Then a group arrived bringing a paralyzed man to him, carried by four men. ⁴Since they were unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they stripped off the roof above where he was. After digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralyzed man was lying.

⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, "Child, your sins are released."

⁶Now some of the legal scholars were sitting there, debating within their hearts: ⁷"Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can release sins except the one God?"

⁸Immediately, Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were debating this way among themselves and said to them, "Why are you debating these things in your hearts? ⁹Which is more effortless: to say to the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are released,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat, and walk’? ¹⁰But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to release sins"—he said to the paralyzed man— ¹¹"I tell you: rise, pick up your mat, and go to your home."

¹²The man rose, and immediately picking up the mat, he went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astonished and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

¹³Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd came to him, and he began teaching them. ¹⁴As he was passing by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector’s booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And Levi stood up and followed him.

¹⁵Later, as Jesus was reclining at a meal in Levi’s house, many toll collectors and social outcasts were reclining with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following him. ¹⁶When the legal scholars of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with outcasts and toll collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with toll collectors and outcasts?"

¹⁷Hearing this, Jesus said to them, "The healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are ill do. I did not come to call the just, but the outcasts."

¹⁸Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came and said to him, "Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"

¹⁹Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰But days will come when the groom is taken away from them, and then they will fast, on that day. ²¹No one sews a patch of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old, and the tear becomes worse. ²²And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are destroyed. Instead, new wine is for fresh wineskins."

²³It happened that Jesus was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and his disciples began to make a path, plucking the heads of grain. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, "Look! Why are they doing what is not permitted on the Sabbath?"

²⁵He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he and those with him were in need and hungry? ²⁶How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the 'Bread of the Presence'—which is not permitted for anyone to eat except the priests—and he also gave some to those who were with him?" ²⁷Then he said to them, "The Sabbath came into being for the sake of humanity, not humanity for the sake of the Sabbath. ²⁸So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."