But he said to them, "It was about you hypocrites that Isaiah prophesied so finely, in the words, " 'This people honor me with their lips, Yet their hearts are far away from me.

but a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit immediately heard about him and came and threw herself at his feet.

Now the woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician birth. And she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.

And they brought to him a man who was deaf and hardly able to speak, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.

And his ears were opened and his tongue was released and he talked plainly.

Then he laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked steadily and was cured, and saw everything plainly.

And suddenly, on looking around, they saw that there was now no one with them but Jesus alone.

Then Jesus, seeing that a crowd was rapidly gathering, reproved the foul spirit and said to it, "You deaf and dumb spirit, get out of him, I charge you, and never enter him again!"

And it gave a cry and convulsed him terribly, and went out of him. And the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said that he was dead.

for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and three days after he is killed he will rise again."

And they reached Capernaum. When he reached home, he asked them, "What was it that you were discussing on the way?"

But they made no answer, for on the way they had been discussing with one another which of them was the greatest.

John said to him, "Master, we saw a man driving out demons with your name, and we told him not to do so, for he was not one of our followers."

And he left that place and went into the district of Judea and crossed the Jordan, and crowds of people again gathered about him, and again he taught them as he was accustomed to do.

But Jesus said to them, "It was on account of your perversity that he laid down that law for you.

When Jesus saw it, he was indignant, and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not try to stop them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as they.

As he was starting again on his journey, a man came running up to him, and knelt at his feet and asked him, "Good master, what must I do to make sure of eternal life?"

But he said to him, "Master, I have obeyed all these commandments ever since I was a child."

As they went on their way up to Jerusalem, Jesus walked ahead of them, and they were in dismay, and those who still followed were afraid. And he took the Twelve aside again and began to tell them what was going to happen to him.

And they came to Jericho. As he was leaving the town with his disciples and a great crowd, Timaeus' son Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting at the roadside.

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to cry out, "Jesus, you son of David, take pity on me!"

And he came into Jerusalem and into the Temple, and looked it all over; then, as it was already late, he went out with the Twelve to Bethany.

And he saw in the distance a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went up to it to see if he could find any figs on it. When he reached it he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the time for figs.

In the morning as they were passing along, they saw that the fig tree was withered, to its very roots.

Then they went into Jerusalem again. And as Jesus was walking about in the Temple, the high priests, scribes, and elders came up

Was John's baptism from heaven or from men? Answer me."

And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'It was from heaven,' he will say, 'Then why did you not believe him?'

Yet can we say, 'It was from men'?" For they were afraid of the people, because all the people thought John was really a prophet.

And they tried to have him arrested, but they were afraid of the people, for they knew that the illustration was aimed at them. And they left him and went away.

As Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he answered them and said, "How can the scribes say that the Christ is a son of David?

As he was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Master! What wonderful stones and buildings!"

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him, apart from the others,

It was now two days before the festival of the Passover and of Unleavened Bread. And the high priests and scribes were casting about for a way to arrest him by stealth and put him to death,

Jesus was in Bethany, at the house of Simon the leper, and as he was at table, a woman came in, with an alabaster flask of pure nard perfume, very expensive; she broke the flask and poured the perfume on his head.

But there were some who said indignantly to themselves, "What was the use of wasting the perfume like that?

They were delighted to hear it and promised to pay him for it. So he was watching for an opportunity to betray him to them.

On the first day of the festival of Unleavened Bread, on which it was customary to kill the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples said to him, "Where do you wish us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover supper?"

When it was evening he came with the Twelve.

Just at that moment, while he was still speaking, Judas, who was one of the Twelve, came up, and with him a crowd of men with swords and clubs, from the high priests, scribes, and elders.

But Jesus was silent and made no answer. The high priest again questioned him and said to him, "Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?"

While Peter was down in the courtyard, one of the high priest's maids came up,

As soon as it was daylight, the high priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes, and they and the whole council bound Jesus and took him away and handed him over to Pilate.

There was in prison a man called Barabbas, among some revolutionaries who in their outbreak had committed murder.

And they forced a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross??ne Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus.

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.

And the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two, from top to bottom.

And when the captain who stood facing him saw how he expired he said, "This man was certainly a son of God!"

who used to accompany him and wait on him when he was in Galilee??esides many other women who had come up to Jerusalem with him.

Although it was now evening, yet since it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath,

Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the council, who was himself living in expectation of the reign of God, made bold to go to Pilate and ask for Jesus' body.

Pilate wondered whether he was dead already, and he sent for the captain and asked whether he was dead yet,

and when he learned from the captain that he was, he gave Joseph permission to take the body.

And Mary of Magdala and Mary, Joses' mother, were looking on and saw where he was put.

When the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary, James's mother, and Salome bought spices, in order to go and anoint him.

And they looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled back, for it was very large.

But he said to them, "You must not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See! This is where they laid him.

When they heard that he was alive and that she had seen him, they would not believe it.

So the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was caught up into heaven and took his seat at God's right hand.

In the days when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the division of Abijah. His wife was also a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

They had no children, for Elizabeth was barren; and they were both advanced in life.

Once when he was acting as priest before God, when his division was on duty,

while all the throng of people was outside, praying at the hour of the incense offering.

When Zechariah saw him he was startled and overcome with fear.

And when his period of service was over, he went back to his home.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,

to a maiden there who was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The maiden's name was Mary.

But she was startled at what he said, and wondered what this greeting meant.

And your relative, Elizabeth, although she is old, is going to give birth to a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was said to be barren.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the babe stirred within her. And Elizabeth was filled with the holy Spirit

and everyone who heard them kept them in mind, and said, "What is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

And his father Zechariah was filled with the holy Spirit and he uttered a divine message, saying,

In those days an edict was issued by the Emperor Augustus that a census of the whole world should be taken.

It was the first census, taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

to register with Mary, who was engaged to him and who was soon to become a mother.

and she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped him up, and laid him in a manger, for there was no room for them at the inn.

When he was eight days old and it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, as the angel had named him, before his birth was first expected.

When their purification period under the Law of Moses was over, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,

Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Symeon, an upright, devout man, who was living in expectation of the comforting of Israel, and under the influence of the holy Spirit.

There was also a prophetess there named Hannah, the daughter of Phanuel, who belonged to the tribe of Asher. She was very old, for after her girlhood she had been married for seven years,

and she had been a widow until she was now eighty-four. She never left the Temple, but worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer.

And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual to the festival and made their customary stay.

They supposed that he was somewhere in the party, and traveled until the end of the first day's journey, and then they looked everywhere for him among their relatives and acquaintances.

and everyone who heard him was astonished at his intelligence and at the answers he made.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod governor of Galilee, while his brother Philip was governor of the territory of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was the governor of Abilene,

As all this aroused people's expectations, and they were all wondering in their hearts whether John was the Christ,

Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also after his baptism was praying, heaven opened

Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son, it was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Eli,

Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the holy Spirit, and he was led about in the desert

for forty days by the Spirit, and was tempted by the devil. In all those days he ate nothing, and when they were over he was famished.

And he taught in their synagogues, and was honored by them all.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went to the synagogue, as he was accustomed to do, and stood up to read the Scriptures.

And the roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he unrolled it and found the place where it says,

But, I tell you, there were plenty of widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was closed for three years and a half, and there was a great famine all over the land,

and Elijah was not sent to one of them, but to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

And there were plenty of lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cured, but Naaman the Syrian."

and they got up and drove him out of the town and took him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, intending to throw him down from it.

There was a man in the synagogue who was possessed by the spirit of a foul demon and he cried out loudly,

When he got up and left the synagogue, he went to Simon's house. And Simon's mother-in-law was suffering with a severe attack of fever, and they asked him about her.

And demons came out of many people, crying out, "You are the Son of God!" But he reproved them and forbade them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.

When it was day, he left the house and made his way to a lonely spot, and crowds of people went in search of him, and overtook him and tried to keep him from leaving them.