Mark Chapter 2

Healing a Paralyzed Man

¹ Several days later, Jesus went back to Capernaum, and people heard he was home. ² So many people gathered, there wasn’t room at the door, and he was speaking the message to them. ³ Four men came^p, carrying a paralyzed man. ⁴ With the crowd in the way, they couldn’t get to Jesus; so they took the roof apart above him and lowered the stretcher with the man on it.

            ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he told^p the man, “Son, I’m forgiving your sins.”

            ⁶ Some scribes sitting there wondered to themselves, ⁷ “Why’s he talking like that? He’s blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God?”

         ⁸ Jesus knew what they were thinking,

“Why are you wondering about that? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to a paralyzed man, ‘I’m forgiving your sins’; or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher, and walk’? ¹⁰ Just so you know that the Son of Man has the right on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man, ¹¹ “Get up, pick up your stretcher, and go on home.”

¹² He got up at once, picked it up, and went out in front of everybody. They were astounded and praised God, “We’ve never seen such a thing.” ¹³ Jesus went out again beside the lake. The whole crowd went along, and he started teaching again.       

Mk 2:1-13

Calling Matthew;

Controversy About Eating with Sinners

            ¹⁴ As he was going along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. He said^p, “Come with me.” He got up and went with him.

¹⁵ He was reclining^p at table in Levi’s house. Many tax collectors and sinners were reclining at table with him and his disciples because many of them were following him. ¹⁶ When the scribes of the Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they started saying to his disciples, “Why’s he eating with tax collectors and sinners?”

            ¹⁷ Jesus overheard it, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; sick ones do. I didn’t come so much to call good people as to call sinners.”

Question About Fasting

            ¹⁸ The disciples of John and the Pharisees were accustomed to fasting. They came^p and asked^p Jesus, “Why do John’s and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but yours don’t?”

            ¹⁹ He said, “Groomsmen can’t feel like fasting while the groom’s around, can they? ²⁰ The time’s coming when the groom will be taken away from them. They’ll fast then.”

²¹ “Nobody sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. The new patch would pull away from the old material and make the tear worse. ²² Nobody puts new wine in old wineskins. It would burst the wineskins, and the wine and wineskins would be lost. People put new wine in new wineskins.”                                                                                                                        

Mk 2:14-22

Controversy About Breaking Sabbath

            ²³ On a Sabbath he was going along the grain fields, and his disciples started picking off heads as they went.

²⁴ The Pharisees said, “Why are they doing what’s against the Law on Sabbath?”

²⁵ He said, “You have read, haven’t you, what David did when he and his men needed something to eat? ²⁶ He went into God’s house at the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the consecrated bread that’s against the Law for anybody but priests to eat. He gave some to the ones with him. ²⁷ Sabbath was made for people, not people for Sabbath. ²⁸ Person takes precedence over Sabbath”^lit.  [or lit., “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”]                                                                                                                        

Mk 2:23-28