1 After some days He came back to Capernaum, and it was reported that He was at home,
2 and so many people gathered there that there was no longer any room even around the door. He was telling them His message.
3 Then four men came bringing to Him a paralyzed man.
4 And as they could not get him near to Jesus, on account of the crowd, they dug through the roof over the spot where He was standing and let the pallet down that the paralyzed man was lying on.
6 Some scribes were sitting there arguing and saying to themselves,
7 "Why is He talking this way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
8 Now Jesus at once felt in His spirit that they were arguing about this, and said, "Why are you arguing to yourselves about this?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say to him, 'Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!"
10 But to show you that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth," turning to the paralyzed man He said,
11 "I tell you, get up, pick up your pallet, and go home."
12 Then he got up and at once picked up his pallet, and went out before them all. The result was that they were all dumbfounded and began to praise God and say, "We have never seen anything like this before."
13 He went out of the town again and along the seashore, and all the people kept coming to Him and He kept teaching them.
14 And as He was passing by, He saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting in the tax-collector's office, and He said to him, "Follow me." Then he got up and followed Him.
15 Levi was at table in his house, and he had many tax-collectors and notorious sinners as guests, along with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many of them, and they began to follow Him.
16 And when the scribes who belonged to the Pharisees' party saw that He was eating with notorious sinners and tax-collectors, they said to His disciples, "Why does He eat with tax-collectors and notorious sinners?"
17 Jesus heard it, and said to them, "Not well but sick people have to send for the doctor. It is not upright but sinful people that I have come to invite."
18 Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast. So some people came and asked Him, "Why do John's disciples and the Pharisees' disciples practice fasting, but yours never do?"
19 Jesus answered them, "The wedding guests cannot fast, can they, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
20 But a time is coming when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
21 No one sews a patch of brand-new goods on an old coat; or, if he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and the hole becomes bigger than ever.
22 No one puts new wine into old wine-bottles, or, if he does, the wine will break the bottles, and the wine is lost, and the bottles too. New wine is to be put up in new bottles."
23 On the Sabbath He was passing through the wheat fields, and His disciples started to make a path by pulling off the wheat heads.
24 So the Pharisees were saying to Him, "Just look! Why are they doing on the Sabbath what it is against the law to do?"
25 He answered them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his soldiers were in need and hungry?
26 How is it that he went into the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the sacred loaves, which it is against the law for anyone except the priests to eat, and gave part of them to his soldiers, too?"
27 Then He said to them, "The Sabbath was made to serve man and not man to keep the Sabbath.
28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."