He is a voice of one who shouts in the desert, 'Get the road ready for the Lord; make the paths straight for Him.'"

He kept preaching the following message, "After me there is coming One who is stronger than I am, whose shoes I am not fit to stoop down and untie.

And they were dumbfounded at His teaching, for He was teaching them like one who had authority to teach, and not like the scribes.

Just at that moment there was a man in their synagogue who was under the spell of a foul spirit, and so he screamed,

"What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, God's Holy One!"

In the evening, when the sun had gone down, they kept on bringing to Him all the people who were sick or under the power of demons,

And He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and drove out many demons, and would not let the demons speak a word, because they knew who He was.

"Why is He talking this way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

And when the scribes who belonged to the Pharisees' party saw that He was eating with notorious sinners and tax-collectors, they said to His disciples, "Why does He eat with tax-collectors and notorious sinners?"

Then He went into a synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.

For He cured so many people that all who had ailments kept crowding up against Him to touch Him.

But He charged them time after time not to tell who He was.

Then He went up on the hillside and summoned to Him those whom He wanted, and they went to Him.

And He appointed the Twelve, to whom He gave the title, apostles, to be with Him, to send them forth to preach,

The Twelve whom He appointed were: Peter, the name which He gave to Simon,

and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. Then He went home.

And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem kept saying, "He is under the spell of Beelzebub and by the help of the prince of the demons He drives out the demons."

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

And He said, "Let him who has ears listen!"

When He was by Himself, those who stayed about Him with the Twelve began to ask Him about the stories.

Then He said to them, "To you the secret of the kingdom of God has been entrusted, but to those who are on the outside everything is presented in stories, so that

The ones along the path are those who have the message sown in their hearts, but as soon as it is sown there, Satan comes and carries off the message that has been sown in their hearts.

A different class are those people sown among the thorns. They are people who listen to the message,

And the people sown in rich soil are the people who listen to the message and welcome it and yield thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold."

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

They were very much frightened, and said to one another, "Who can He be that even the wind and the sea obey Him?"

When they came to Jesus and saw the man who had once been insane under the power of many demons, sitting, with his clothes on, and in his right mind, they were frightened.

And those who had seen it told them how it occurred to the man who had been under the power of the demons, and about the hogs.

Then a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years,

Jesus at once perceived that power had gone out of Him, and so He turned around in the crowd, and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

But the disciples kept saying to Him, "You see the crowd jostling you, and yet you ask, 'Who touched me?'"

Still He kept looking around to see her who had done it.

But when Herod heard of Him, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead."

There were five thousand men who ate the loaves.

The Pharisees met about Him, and also some scribes who had come from Jerusalem.

She was a heathen who spoke Greek and had been born in Syro-Phenicia. And she kept begging Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.

And they brought to Him a man who was deaf and almost dumb, and they begged Him to lay His hand upon him.

Then Jesus and His disciples left Galilee and went to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way there He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that I am?"

Then He began to ask them, "Who do you yourselves say that I am?" Peter answered Him, "You are the Christ."

Jesus said to him, "If there is anything I can do! Everything is possible for him who has faith!"

"Whoever, as a disciple of mine, welcomes one little child like this, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not merely me but Him who sent me."

Jesus said, "Do not try to stop him, for there is no one who will use my name to do a mighty deed, and then be able soon to abuse me.

Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have money to get into the kingdom of God!"

They were perfectly dumbfounded, and said to Him, "Then who can be saved?"

Jesus said, "I solemnly say to you, there is no one who has given up home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farm for me and for the good news,

who will not receive now in this life a hundred times as much in houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, but along with them persecution, and in the world to come eternal life.

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

As they were walking along the road up to Jerusalem, Jesus was going on ahead of them, but they were dazed while those who were still following were afraid. Then again He took the Twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to befall Him.

but seats at my right and at my left are not mine to give, but they will be given to those for whom they have been prepared."

Then Jesus called them to Him, and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule the heathen lord it over them, and their great men rule as despots over them;

Then those in front and those behind Him shouted: "Welcome Him! Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord;

Then they reached Jerusalem, and He went into the temple and began to drive out of it those who were buying and selling things in it. Then He upset the money-changers' tables and the dove-dealers' counters,

and said to Him, "What sort of authority have you for doing as you do? Or, who gave you the authority to do as you do?"

Then he sent a third one, and they killed him, and many others, some of whom they beat, some they killed.

Then some Sadducees, who claim that there is no resurrection, came up to Him and asked Him this question,

And in His teaching He continued to say: "Beware of the scribes who like to go about in long robes, to be saluted with honor in public places,

men who eat up widows' houses and to cover it up make long prayers. They will get a much heavier sentence!"

And He called His disciples to Him and said, "I solemnly say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all these others who have been putting money into the collection-box.

"So when you see the destructive desecration standing where he has no right to stand" -- let the reader take notice -- "then let those who remain in Judea fly to the hills;

let him who is on the roof of his house not go down and go into the house to get anything out of it;

let him who is in the field not turn back to get his coat.

Alas for the women who are expectant mothers and those who have nursing babies, in those days!

It will be like a man who leaves his home and goes on a journey, after he has given orders to his slaves, to each his particular task, and has given orders to the watchman to keep watch.

And while they were sitting at table and eating, Jesus said, "I solemnly say to you, one of you, one who is now eating with me, is going to betray me."

He answered them, "It is one of the Twelve, the one who is dipping his bread in the dish with me.

For the Son of Man is going away, as the Scriptures say of Him, but a curse will be on that man by whom He is betrayed. It would have been better for that man, if he had never been born."

Now at the time of the feast Pilate usually set a prisoner free whom the people requested.

There was in prison a man named Barabbas, among some revolutionaries who in their uprising had committed murder,

Then Pilate again said to them, "What then do you want me to do to the man whom you call king of the Jews?"

They forced a certain passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry His cross -- Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus.

And the passers-by kept hissing at Him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You are the man who would tear down the temple and build another in three days!

Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see it and believe!" Even the men who were crucified with Him made sport of Him.

And when the captain who stood facing him saw that He expired in this way, he said, "This man was surely God's Son!"

who used to accompany Him when He was in Galilee, besides several other women who had come up to Jerusalem with Him.

Joseph of Arimathea, a highly honored member of the council, who was himself looking for the kingdom of God, ventured to go to Pilate and ask for Jesus' body.

And they kept saying to one another, "Who will roll the boulder back from the doorway of the tomb for us?"

But he said to them, "You must not be so astounded; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See! Here is the spot where they laid Him.

Now after He had risen, early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary of Magdala, out of whom He had driven seven demons.

Later on He appeared to the Eleven themselves while they were at table, and reproved them for their lack of faith and their stubbornness, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had been raised from the dead.

He who believes it and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe it will be condemned.

And the following signs will attend those who believe: By using my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in foreign languages;