and all the land of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem, kept going out to him, and were baptized by him in the Jordan river, confessing their sins.

and as soon as he rose from the water he saw the sky cleft asunder, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him,

Then the Spirit drove him at once into the desert,

and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was among the wild beasts, but the angels were ministering to him.

At once they left their nets and followed him.

Straightway he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants and went after him.

But Jesus rebuked him, saying. "Be quit! Come out of him."

So the unclean spirit, after tearing him, came out of him with a loud cry;

and every one was amazed so that they began questioning among themselves. "What does this mean? A new teaching with authority? He lays commands even upon unclean spirits and they obey him."

Now Simon's mother-in-law lay sick of fever, and without delay they told him about her.

At evening when the sun had set, people came and brought to him all the sick and demon-possessed,

And Simon and his companions hunted him up,

and told him, "Every one is looking for you."

One day a leper cane to him and besought him as he knelt down to him, saying, "If you choose, you are able to cleanse me."

Jesus, moved with compassion, put out his hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose, be clean!"

The leprosy at once left him, and he was made clean.

Jesus immediately sent him away, charging him sternly and saying.

But he went out and began to tell every one and to publish it broadcast, so that Jesus could no longer enter any town openly; but he had to remain outside in lonely places, and people kept coming to him from every quarter.

While he was speaking his message, they came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four men.

When they could not get him near to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof under which he stood, and after making an opening, they let down the cot on which the paralytic was lying.

Then Jesus went again to the seaside, and the whole crowd kept coming to him, and he taught them.

As he was passing by he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax-office; and he said to him, "Follow me." So he rose and followed him.

Later on Levi was sitting at table in his house, and together with Jesus and his disciples a number of tax-gatherers and sinners were guests, for there were many of them who used to follow him.

But when some scribes of the Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax-gatherers, they said to his disciples, "Is he eating and drinking with tax-gatherers and sinners?"

Now the disciples of John and the Pharisees were keeping a fast, and people came to ask him, "How is it that the disciples of John and the Pharisees are fasting, but your disciples are not?"

"Look," said the Pharisees to him, "Why are they doing on the Sabbath Day what is against the law?"

And they kept watching Jesus to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath; so as to have some charge to bring against him.

As soon as they came out, the Pharisees plotted against him with the Herodians, in order to destroy him.

From Judea, too, and Jerusalem, and Idumea, and from beyond Jordan, and from the district of Tyre and Sidon, they came to him a vast multitude, because they heard what he was doing.

So he directed his disciples to keep a little boat in readiness for him, because of the crowd, to prevent their crushing him.

For he had healed so many that all the people who had ailments pressed upon him so as to touch him.

And whenever the unclean spirits beheld him, they threw themselves down at his feet, screaming out, "You are the Son of God."

But over and over, he strictly forbade them to make him known.

Then he went up the hillside and called to him those whom he chose, and they came to him.

Twelve of them whom he also called "Apostles," he appointed to be with him, and also that he might send them out to preach,

and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

When his relatives heard of it, they came to take possession of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

So when he had called them to him he spoke to them in parables. "How," said he, "can Satan cast out Satan?

Then his mother and his brothers came up, and standing outside, they sent a messenger to him to call him.

Now a crowd was sitting round him and they told him, "See! your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, wanting to see you."

Then, with a glance at those who were in the circle sitting around him, he added.

Afterwards Jesus began to teach by the seaside, and a vast multitude of people gathered about him, so that he went on board a boat on the sea, and sat there, while all the people stayed on shore, at the water's edge.

"Any one who has ears to hear," he added, "let him listen to this."

If any man has ears to hear, let him hear."

For he who holds, to him will more be given, and he who holds not, from him will be taken even what he holds."

So, leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them just as he was in the boat; and the other boats were with him.

Now he himself was sleeping on the cushion in the stern, so they woke him up, saying, "Master, do you not care if we perish?"

Then they were awestruck, and said one to another, "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him!"

and he had no sooner stepped out of the boat, than a man out of the tombs came to meet him, a man with an unclean spirit,

Not even with a chain could any man bind him, for he had been bound with fetters and chains again and again, and had snapped the chains, and broken the fetters; and there was no one strong enough to master him.

As he caught sight of Jesus from afar, he ran and knelt before him,

He continued asking him, "What is your mane?" "Legion is my name, for we are many."

So the spirits begged him, saying, "Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them."

As he was getting into the boat the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging to go with him; but he said,

So he went and began to publish abroad in the District of the Ten Towns all that Jesus had done for him; and every one was astonished and all men marveled.

Then after Jesus had recrossed in a boat to the other side, a vast multitude came crowding around him; so he stayed on the seashore.

So he went with him, and a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.

Jesus, instantly conscious that the power within him had gone forth, turned about in the crowd, and said, "Who touched my clothes?"

and the woman knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

While he was still speaking men came from the house of the warden of the synagogue to tell him, "Your daughter is dead, why trouble the Teacher any further?"

He would not permit any one to go with him, except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

"The child is not dead, but asleep." And they began to laugh him to scorn. Then he put them all outside, took the father and mother of the child and those he brought with him, and entered the room where the child was lying.

So they disapproved of him. Then Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native land and among his relatives and in his home."

Then summoning the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits.

King Herod heard it, for the name of Jesus had become well known, People were saying, "John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and on that account these powers are working in him."

Now this Herod had sent and arrested John, and bound him in prison, for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married.

So Herodias hated him, and wished to put him to death;

but she could not, for Herod was afraid of John because he knew that he was a just and holy man. So he kept him safe. When he listened to John he was much exercised, yet he found pleasure in listening to him.

When the apostles had come back to Jesus, they told him all the things they had done, and all they had taught.

Then when the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him and said: "This place is desert, and the day is now far spent.

Then he at once compelled the disciples to embark in the boat and go before him to Bethsaida on the other side, while he sent the people away.

they thought it was an apparition and shrieked aloud, for they all saw him and were terrified.

As soon as they got out of the boat, the people at once recognized him,

And whenever he entered into villages or cities or the fields they would lay the sick in the market-places and beseech him to let them touch even the tassel of his cloak, and all who touched him were made well.

One day the Pharisees came to him in a body with some Scribes who had come from Jerusalem.

So the Pharisees and Scribes asked him. "Why do your disciples not follow the traditions of the elders? Why do they eat with 'common' unwashed hands?"

For although Moses said, Honor your father and mother, and Let him who curses father or mother suffer death,

you exempt him from doing any service for his father or mother.

Then again he called the crowd to him and said:

"Listen to me, all of you, and understand; there is nothing outside a man which by entering in can defile him; but it is what comes from him that defiled him."

After he had left the crowd and gone indoors his disciples began asking him about the parable.

"Are even you without understanding?" he said. "Do you not perceive that nothing whatever from without can defile a man by entering him,

because it does not go into his heart, but into his belly, and passes away, ejected from him?" By these words he pronounced all foods clean.

"What comes out of a man," he continued, "is what defiles him.

Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet

(the woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by race), and again and again she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

And they brought to him a deaf man who stammered, and begged him to lay his hands upon him.

So Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put his finger in the man's ears, and moistened his tongue with saliva;

then looking up to heaven with a sigh, he said to him, "Ephphatha!" (that is, "Be opened.")

And the Pharisees came out and began to question him, seeking from him a sign from heaven, by way of testing him.

Then they came to Bethsaida, where some people brought a blind man to Jesus, and begged him to touch him.

Taking the blind man by the hand, he led him outside the village; and, after spitting on his eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, "Can you make out anything?"

Then Jesus sent him home, saying, "Do not even go into the village."

And they told him. "Some say John the Baptist, others, Elijah, and others that you are one of the prophets."

And he continued questioning them, "But you yourselves, Who do you say I am?" Peter in reply said to him, "You are Christ."

Then he strictly charged them not to say this about him to any one;

This he told them quite openly. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him.

Then summoning the crowd to him, with his disciples. he said: "If any man wishes to follow me, let him renounce self, take up his cross, and so follow me.

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this unfaithful and wicked generation, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Six days later Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and brought them by themselves up a high mountain apart from the rest.