He is a voice calling out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way for the Lord! Make his paths straight!'"

Now John was dressed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist. He ate grasshoppers and wild honey.

He kept proclaiming, "The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am, and I am not worthy to bend down and untie his sandal straps.

I baptized you with water, but it is he who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

He was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was among wild animals, and angels were ministering to him.

He said, "The time is now! The kingdom of God is near! Repent, and keep believing the gospel!"

While Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were throwing a net into the sea because they were fishermen.

Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat repairing their nets.

He immediately called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

The people were utterly amazed at his teaching, because he was teaching them like one with authority, and not like their scribes.

All of a sudden, there was a man in their synagogue who had an unclean spirit! He screamed,

But Jesus rebuked him. "Be quiet," he ordered, "and come out of him!"

All the people were so stunned that they kept saying to each other, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! He tells even the unclean spirits what to do, and they obey him!"

He went up to her, took her by the hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began serving them.

He healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. However, he wouldn't allow the demons to speak because they knew who he was.

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

So he went throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

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."

Instantly the leprosy left him, and he was clean.

He told the man, "Be sure that you don't tell anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest, and then offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as proof to the authorities."

But when the man left, he began to proclaim it freely. He spread the news so widely that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but had to stay out in deserted places. Still, people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Several days later, Jesus returned to Capernaum and it was reported that he was at home.

Since they couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof over the place where he was. They dug through it and let down the mat on which the paralyzed man was lying.

When Jesus saw their faith, he told the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

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

At once, Jesus knew in his spirit what they were saying to themselves. "Why are you arguing about such things among yourselves?" he asked them.

But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"" Then he told the paralyzed man,

Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd kept coming to him, and he kept teaching them.

As he was walking along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's desk. Jesus told him, "Follow me!" So Levi got up and followed him.

Later, he was having dinner at Levi's house. Many tax collectors and sinners were also eating with Jesus and his disciples, because there were many who were following him.

When the scribes and the Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, "Why does he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

When Jesus heard that, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a physician, but sick ones do. I did not come to call righteous people, but sinners."

"No one patches an old garment with a piece of unshrunk cloth. If he does, the patch pulls away from it the new from the old and a worse tear is made.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

He asked them, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

How was it that he went into the House of God during the lifetime of Abiathar the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which was not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat, and gave some of it to his companions?"

Then he told them, "The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

The people watched Jesus closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, intending to accuse him of doing something wrong.

He told the man with the paralyzed hand, "Come forward."

Then he asked them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on Sabbath days, to save a life or to destroy it?" But they remained silent.

Jesus looked around at them in anger, deeply hurt because of their hard hearts. Then he told the man, "Hold out your hand." The man held it out, and his hand was restored to health.

Immediately the Pharisees and Herodians went out and began to plot how to kill him.

Jerusalem, Idumea, from across the Jordan, and from the region around Tyre and Sidon followed him. They came to him because they kept hearing about everything he was doing.

because he had healed so many people that everyone who had diseases kept crowding up against him in order to touch him.

But he sternly ordered them again and again not to tell people who he was.

Then Jesus went up on a hillside and called to himself those whom he had decided on, and they approached him.

He appointed the Twelve, whom he called apostles, to accompany him, to be sent out to preach,

He appointed the Twelve: Simon (whom he named Peter),

Zebedee's sons James and his brother John (whom he named Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder),

Then he went home. Such a large crowd gathered again that Jesus and his disciples couldn't even eat.

When his family heard about it, they went to restrain him, because they kept saying, "He's out of his mind!"

The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem kept repeating, "He has Beelzebul," and, "He drives out demons by the ruler of demons."

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

So if Satan rebels against himself and is divided, he cannot stand. Indeed, his end has come.

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.

"because they had been saying, "He has an unclean spirit."

He answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"

Then looking at the people sitting around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!

Then Jesus began to teach again beside the sea. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while the entire crowd remained beside the sea on the shore.

He began teaching them many things in parables. While he was teaching them he said,

As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and ate them up.

He added, "Let the person who has ears to hear, listen!"

When he was alone with the Twelve and those around him, they began to ask him about the parables.

He told them, "The secret about the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything comes in parables

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

He went on to say to them, "Pay attention to what you're hearing! You will be evaluated by the same standard with which you do your evaluating, and still more will be given to you,

because whoever has something, will have more given to him. But whoever has nothing, even what he has will be taken away."

He was also saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seeds on the ground.

He sleeps and gets up night and day while the seeds sprout and grow, although he doesn't know how

But when the grain is ripe, he immediately starts cutting with his sickle because the harvest time has come."

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

He did not tell them anything without using a parable, though he explained everything to his disciples in private.

That day, when evening had come, he told them, "Let's cross to the other side."

Then he got up, rebuked the wind, and told the sea, "Calm down! Be still!" Then the wind stopped blowing, and there was a great calm.

He asked them, "Why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith yet?"

He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, not even with a chain.

He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but had snapped the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one could tame him.

He kept screaming night and day among the tombs and on the mountainsides, and kept cutting himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell down in front of him,

screaming in a loud voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you in the name of God never to torment me!"

He told him, "My name is Legion, because there are many of us." He kept pleading with Jesus not to send them out of that region.

So he let them do this. The unclean spirits came out of the man and went into the pigs, and the herd of about 2,000 rushed down a steep slope into the sea and drowned there.

But Jesus wouldn't let him. Instead, he told him, "Go home to your family, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been to you."

So the man left and began proclaiming in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone was utterly amazed.

Then a synagogue leader named Jairus arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet

Immediately Jesus became aware that power had gone out of him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

But he kept looking around to look at the woman who had done this.

He told her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness."

While he was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue leader's home and said, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore?"

But when Jesus heard what they said, he told the synagogue leader, "Stop being afraid! Just keep on believing."

He entered the house and asked them, "Why all this confusion and crying? The child isn't dead. She's sleeping."

They laughed and laughed at him. But when he had driven all of them outside, he took the child's father and mother, along with the men who were with him, and went into the room where the child was.

He took her by the hand and told her, "Talitha koum," which means, "Young lady, I tell you, get up!"

But Jesus strictly ordered them not to let anyone know about this. He also told them to give her something to eat.

When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were utterly amazed. "Where did this man get all these things?" they asked. "What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What great miracles are being done by his hands!

He couldn't perform a miracle there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

He was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went around to the villages and continued teaching.

He called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits.

He instructed them to take nothing along on the trip except a walking stick no bread, no traveling bag, nothing in their moneybag.