As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.

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."

Then a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love. I am pleased with you!"

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

"What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the Holy One of God!"

When evening came, after the sun had set, people started bringing to him everyone who was sick or possessed by demons.

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.

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

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.

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),

and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

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

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

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

Still others are like the seeds sown among the thorn bushes. These are the people who hear the word,

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

Overcome with fear, they kept saying to one another, "Who is this man? Even the wind and the sea obey him!"

Now when those who had been taking care of the pigs ran away, they reported what had happened in the city and countryside. So the people went to see what had happened.

When they came to Jesus and saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there dressed and in his right mind, they were frightened.

The people who had seen it told them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging him to let him go with him.

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years.

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

His disciples asked him, "You see the crowd jostling you, and yet you ask, "Who touched me?'"

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

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.

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!

They also kept driving out many demons and anointing with oil many who were sick, and healing them.

But when Herod heard about it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised,"

because Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him with chains, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom Herod had married.

There were 5,000 men who had eaten the loaves.

Wherever he went, whether into villages, towns, or farms, people would place their sick in the marketplaces and beg him to let them touch even the tassel of his garment, and everyone who touched it was healed.

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus.

Some people brought him a deaf man who also had a speech impediment. They begged him to lay his hand on him.

Then Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he was asking his disciples, "Who do people say I am?"

Then he began to ask them, "But who do you say I am?"

Then a cloud appeared and overshadowed them. A voice came out of the cloud and said, "This is my Son, whom I love. Keep on listening to him!"

Jesus told him, ""If you are able?' Everything is possible for the person who believes!"

But they kept silent, because they had argued on the road with one another about who was the greatest.

"Whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

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

"If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a large millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Some people were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.

Then Jesus looked around and told his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!"

The disciples were startled by these words, but Jesus told them again, "Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to get into the kingdom of God!

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

Jesus said, "I tell all of you with certainty, there is no one who has left his home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or fields because of me and the gospel

who will not receive a hundred times as much here in this world homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, along with persecution as well as eternal life in the age to come.

But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."

Now Jesus and his disciples had been on the road going up to Jerusalem, with Jesus walking ahead of them. They were astonished, and the others who followed were afraid.

Jesus called his disciples and told them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers among the unbelievers lord it over them, and their superiors act like tyrants over them.

Those who went ahead and those who followed him were shouting, "Hosanna! How blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

When they came to Jerusalem, he went into the Temple and began to throw out those who were selling and those who were buying in the Temple. He overturned the moneychangers' tables and the chairs of those who sold doves.

and asked him, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority to do them?"

He still had one more person to send, a son whom he loved. Finally, he sent him to them, saying, "They will respect my son.'

Then some Sadducees, who claim there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him,

He called his disciples and told them, "I tell all of you with certainty, this destitute widow has dropped in more than everyone who is contributing to the offering box,

You will be hated continuously by everyone because of my name. But the person who endures to the end will be saved."

"So when you see the destructive desecration standing where it should not be (let the reader take note), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

The one who's on his housetop must not come down and go into his house to take anything out of it,

and the one who's in the field must not turn back to get his coat.

"How terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days!

If the Lord had not shortened those days, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect whom he has chosen, he has shortened those days.

It's like a man who went on a trip. As he left home, he put his servants in charge, each with his own work, and he ordered the doorkeeper to be alert.

Irritated, some who were there asked one another, "Why was the perfume wasted like this?

While they were at the table eating, Jesus said, "I tell all of you with certainty, one of you is going to betray me, one who is eating with me."

He told them, "It's one of you Twelve, the one who is dipping his bread into the bowl with me.

For the Son of Man is going away, just as it has been written about him, but how terrible it will be for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had never been born."

Get up! Let's go! See, the one who is betraying me is near!"

A certain young man, who was wearing nothing but a linen sheet, was following Jesus. When the men grabbed him,

The servant girl saw him and again told those who were standing around, "This man is one of them!"

Again he denied it. After a little while, the people who were standing there began to say to Peter again, "Obviously you're one of them, because you are a Galilean!"

At every festival, Pilate would release any one prisoner whom the people requested.

Now there was a man in prison named Barabbas. He had been with the insurgents who had committed murder during the rebellion.

They forced a certain passer-by named Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who happened to be coming in from the country, to carry Jesus' cross.

Those who passed by kept insulting him, shaking their heads, and saying, "Ha! You who were going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days

Let the Messiah, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, since seeing is believing!" Even the men who were crucified with him kept insulting him.

When the centurion who stood facing Jesus saw how he had cried out and breathed his last, he said, "This man certainly was the Son of God!"

They used to accompany him and care for him while he was in Galilee. Many other women who had come up to Jerusalem with him were there, too.

Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the Council, who was waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

They kept saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"

But he told them, "Stop being astonished! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Look at the place where they laid him.

After Jesus had risen early on the first day of that week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had driven out seven demons.

She went and told those who had been with Jesus and who now were grieving and crying.

They went back and told the others, who didn't believe them, either.

Finally he appeared to his eleven disciples while they were eating. He rebuked them for their unbelief and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen.

These are the signs that will accompany those who believe: In my name they'll drive out demons, they'll speak in new languages,