1 And Jesus entered the synagogue again and there He met a man with a deformed hand. 2 And the Pharisees were watching Him to see if He would heal the man on the Sabbath day, so that they could [find a reason to] accuse Him. 3 And He said to the man whose hand was deformed, "Step forward." 4 Then He said to the Pharisees, "Is it permissible by the law of Moses to do something good, or something harmful on the Sabbath day? To save a life or to kill it?" But they did not reply. 5 And when He had looked around at them with righteous indignation, being grieved over their stubbornness, He said to the man, "Reach out your hand." And when he reached it out, his hand was restored [to normal use]. 6 And the Pharisees immediately went out and conferred with the Herodians against Jesus, plotting how they could kill Him. [Note: These Herodians were members of a political party favoring King Herod]
7 [Then] Jesus withdrew [from there] with His disciples and went to the lake [i.e., Lake of Galilee], being followed by a large crowd from Galilee. Also, a large crowd from Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumaea, the east side of the Jordan River, and from around Tyre and Sidon [i.e., cities on the northwest coast of Palestine] came to Him, having heard about the great things [i.e., miracles] He had been performing. 9 He told His disciples to have a small boat waiting for Him [i.e., from which He could address the people. See 4:1], to prevent His being thronged by the large crowd. 10 For He had healed so many people that large numbers of them who were plagued with serious illnesses were crowding around Him in hope of getting to touch Him. 11 And whenever they saw Him, [people possessed by] evil spirits fell to the ground in front of Him, shouting, "You are the Son of God." 12 But He sternly ordered them not to reveal His identity.
13 He then went up into the mountain and summoned those He wanted to come to Him and they came. 14 He appointed twelve apostles to travel with Him, whom He could send out to preach 15 and have authority to drive out evil spirits.
16 These apostles were: Simon, to whom He gave the added name Peter, 17 James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, to whom He gave the added name Boanerges, which means "Sons of Thunder," 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew [i.e., the same as Nathaniel. See John 1:45], Matthew [i.e., the same as Levi. See Mark 2:14], Thomas [i.e., the same as Didymus. See John 11:16], James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus [i.e., the same as Judas, the son of James. See Luke 6:16], Simon the Canaanean [i.e., the same as the Zealot. See Luke 6:15], 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. Then Jesus went into a house.
20 Soon a crowd assembled again so that they could not even eat a meal [i.e., without people crowding all around them]. 21 When His relatives [or friends] heard about this [i.e., all that He was doing], they went out to take custody of Him [for safety reasons?], for people were saying, "He has lost his mind."
22 And the experts in the law of Moses who had come down from Jerusalem were saying [Note: This followed the incident of Jesus healing a man with an evil spirit. See Matt. 12:22-28], "He has Beelzebub [in him]," and "He is driving out evil spirits by [the power of] the chief of evil spirits."
23 And He called them to Him and began speaking to them in parables [i.e., brief stories to illustrate His teaching], saying, "How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 And if a kingdom is plagued by internal division, it will never survive. 25 And if a household is divided [by strife] within, that household will never last. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided [i.e., in aim and purpose] he cannot survive, and his end has come.
27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and steal his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man. Only then will he be able to steal from his house. 28 Truly I tell you, all of mankind's sins and the abusive language that they use in speaking against God [and men] can be forgiven. 29 But the person who speaks against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, for he is guilty of a never ending sin." 30 Jesus said all this because these experts in the law of Moses had been saying, "He has an evil spirit in him."
31 Then Jesus' mother and [half-] brothers came and stood outside [i.e., of a large house. See Matt. 12:46-13:1]. They sent a message to Him, asking Him to come out to them. 32 Someone in the large crowd that was sitting around Him said to Him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you."
33 He answered them, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" 34 Then He looked out over those gathered around Him and said, "Look, [here is] my mother and my brothers 35 For whoever will do what God wants, that person is my brother, and sister and mother."