"Let's go to the neighboring town," he replied, "so I can preach there, too, because that's why I came."

Then a leper came to Jesus and began pleading with him. He fell on his knees and told him, "If you want to, you can make me clean."

"Why does this man talk this way? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Jesus replied, "The wedding guests can't fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they can't fast.

So Jesus called them together and began to speak to them in parables. "How can Satan drive out Satan?

No one can go into a strong man's house and carry off his possessions without first tying up the strong man. Then he can ransack his house.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is guilty of eternal sin."

Then he told them, "You don't understand this parable, so how can you understand any of the parables?

but the worries of life, the deceitful pleasures of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word so that it can't produce a crop.

He was also saying, "How can we show what the kingdom of God is like, or what parable can we use to describe it?

when it's planted it comes up and becomes larger than all the garden plants. It grows such large branches that the birds in the sky can nest in its shade."

So the demons begged him, "Send us among the pigs, so that we can go into them!"

because she had been saying, "If I can just touch his robe, I will get well."

Send the crowds away so that they can go to the neighboring farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat."

Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It's what comes out of a person that makes a person unclean.

He asked them, "Are you so ignorant? Don't you know that nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean?

Indeed, what can a person give in exchange for his life?

He told them, "This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting."

But Jesus said, "Don't stop him, because no one who works a miracle in my name can slander me soon afterwards.

Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how can you restore its flavor? Keep on having salt among yourselves, and live in peace with one another."

The disciples were utterly amazed and asked one another, "Then who can be saved?"

But Jesus told them, "You don't realize what you're asking. Can you drink from the cup that I'm going to drink from or be baptized with the baptism with which I'm going to be baptized?"

They told him, "We can."

While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he asked, "How can the scribes say that the Messiah is David's son?

David himself calls him "Lord,' so how can he be his son?" And the large crowd kept listening to him with delight.

because you'll always have the destitute with you and can help them whenever you want, but you won't always have me.

When he goes into a house, say to its owner that the Teacher asks, "Where is my room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?'

In the same way, the high priests, along with the scribes, were also making fun of him among themselves. They kept saying, "He saved others, but can't save himself!