Matthew 4:18-22 - Jesus Calls His First Disciples

¹⁸ And when he was walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, whose other name was Peter, and Andrew, his brother, who were putting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁹ And he said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. ²⁰ And straight away they let go the nets and went after him.

²¹ And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with their father, stitching up their nets; and he said, Come. ²² And they went straight from the boat and their father and came after him.

¹⁶ And going by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew, the brother of Simon, putting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen.

¹⁷ And Jesus said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. ¹⁸ And they went straight from their nets, and came after him. ¹⁹ And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were in their boat stitching up their nets. ²⁰ And he said, Come after me: and they went away from their father Zebedee, who was in the boat with the servants, and came after him.

²¹ And they came to Capernaum; and on the Sabbath he went into the Synagogue and gave teaching.

¹ Now it came about that while the people came pushing to be near him, and to have knowledge of the word of God, he was by a wide stretch of water named Gennesaret; ² And he saw two boats by the edge of the water, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³ And he got into one of the boats, the property of Simon, and made a request to him to go a little way out from the land. And being seated he gave the people teaching from the boat.

⁴ And when his talk was ended, he said to Simon, Go out into deep water, and let down your nets for fish.

⁵ And Simon, answering, said, Master, we were working all night and we took nothing: but at your word I will let down the nets.

⁶ And when they had done this, they got such a great number of fish that it seemed as if their nets would be broken; ⁷ And they made signs to their friends in the other boat to come to their help. And they came, and the two boats were so full that they were going down.

⁸ But Simon, when he saw it, went down at the knees of Jesus and said, Go away from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner. ⁹ For he was full of wonder and so were all those who were with him, at the number of fish which they had taken; ¹⁰ And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were working with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Have no fear; from this time forward you will be a fisher of men. ¹¹ And when they had got their boats to the land, they gave up everything and went after him.