saying to him, "See that you say nothing about this to anybody, but begone! show yourself to the priest, and in proof of your cure make the offerings for your purification which Moses prescribed."

But he went off and began to talk so much about it, and to spread the story so widely, that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in unfrequented places, and people came to him from every direction.

And some people came bringing to him a man who was paralyzed, four of them carrying him.

As they could not get him near Jesus on account of the crowd, they broke open the roof just over his head, and through the opening they lowered the mat with the paralytic lying on it.

Which is easier, to say to this paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say to him, "Get up and pick up your mat and walk'?

He went out of the town again and along the shore, and all the people came to him and he taught them.

And as he was passing along he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tollhouse, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

He was at table in his house, with many tax-collectors and irreligious people who were at table with him and his disciples, for there were many of them among his followers.

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast. And people came and asked him, "Why is it that when John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are keeping the fast, yours are not keeping it?"

And the Pharisees said to him, "Look! Why are they doing what it is against the law to do on the Sabbath?"

And they were watching him closely, to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, in order to get a charge to bring against him.

Then the Pharisees left the synagogue and immediately consulted with the Herodians about Jesus, with a view to putting him to death.

So Jesus retired with his disciples to the seashore, and a great many people from Galilee followed him, and from Judea

and Jerusalem and Idumea and from the other side of the Jordan and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon a great many who had heard of the things he was doing came to him.

For he cured so many people that all who had any ailments pressed up to him to touch him.

And whenever the foul spirits saw him, they fell down before him and screamed out, "You are the Son of God!"

And he went up the hillside and summoned to him those whom he wanted, and they went to him.

He appointed twelve of them, whom he called apostles, to be with him and to be sent out to preach,

and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Then he went home.

His relatives heard of it and came over to stop him, for they said that he was out of his mind.

So he called them to him and spoke to them in figures, saying, "How can Satan drive Satan out?

And his mother and his brothers came. And they stood outside the house and sent word in to him to come outside to them.

There was a crowd sitting around him when they told him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you."

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

Then he began again to teach by the seashore. And a crowd gathered around him so great that he got into a boat and sat in it, a little way from the shore, while all the people were on the land close to the water.

And he said, "Let him who has ears be sure to listen!"

When he was by himself, those who stayed about him with the Twelve asked him about the figures he had used.

If anyone has ears let him be sure to listen.

But as soon as the crop will let him, the man goes in with his sickle, for the harvest time has come.

So they left the crowd and took him away in the boat in which he was sitting. There were other boats with him.

He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him up and said to him, "Master, does it make no difference to you that we are sinking?"

And they were very much frightened, and said to one another, "Who can he be? For even the wind and the sea obey him."

As soon as he got out of the boat, a man possessed by a foul spirit came out of the burial places near by to meet him.

This man lived among the tombs, and no one could any longer secure him even with a chain,

for he had often been fastened with fetters and chains and had snapped the chains and broken the fetters; and there was no one strong enough to master him,

And catching sight of Jesus in the distance he ran up and made obeisance to him

For he was saying to him, "You foul spirit, come out of this man."

He asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "My name is Legion, for there are many of us."

And they begged him earnestly not to send them out of that country.

And they implored him, "Send us among the pigs, let us go into them."

And they began to beg him to leave their district.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed begged to be allowed to go with him.

And he would not permit it, but said to him, "Go home to your own people, and tell them all the Lord has done for you and how he took pity on you."

And he went off and began to tell everybody in the Ten Towns all Jesus had done for him; and they were all astonished.

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him as he stood on the shore.

And a man named Jairus, the leader of a synagogue, came up and seeing him threw himself at his feet,

and appealed to him, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come, lay your hands on her, so that she may get well and live!"

So he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and pressed around him.

had heard about Jesus. And she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his coat,

Jesus instantly perceived that healing power had passed from him, and he turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"

His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you ask, 'Who touched me?' "

The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came forward frightened and trembling, and threw herself down at his feet and told him the whole truth.

He let no one go with him but Peter, James, and James's brother John.

And they laughed at him. But he drove them all out, and took the child's father and mother and the men who were with him and went into the room where the child was lying.

When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue. And the people were astonished when they heard him, and said, "Where did he get all this? How does he come to have such wisdom? How are such marvelous things done through him?

And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, "A prophet is treated with honor everywhere except in his native place and among his relatives and at his home."

And he called the Twelve to him and sent them off two by two, giving them power over the foul spirits.

King Herod heard of him, for his name was now well known, and people were saying that John the baptizer had risen from the dead, and that that was why he was endowed with these extraordinary powers.

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

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him and put him in prison, on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her.

Herodias felt bitterly toward him and wanted him killed. But she could not bring it about,

for Herod stood in awe of John, knowing that he was an upright and holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him talk he was very much disturbed, and yet he liked to hear him.

When she had left the room she said to her mother, "What shall I ask him for?" But she said, "The head of John the baptizer."

And she hurried back at once to the king and asked him for it, saying, "I want you right away to give me John the Baptist's head on a platter."

And he went off and beheaded him in the prison and brought back his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

The apostles rejoined Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.

When it grew late his disciples came up to him and said, "This is a lonely place and it is getting late.

But he answered, "Give them food yourselves." They said to him, "Can we go and buy forty dollars' worth of bread and give it to them to eat?"

But he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." They looked, and told him. "Five, and two fish."

He immediately had his disciples get into the boat and cross before him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he was dismissing the crowd.

They saw him walking on the sea, and thought it was a ghost and screamed aloud,

for they all saw him and were terrified. But he immediately spoke to them and said, "Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid."

and they hurried all over the countryside and began to bring the sick to him on their mats, wherever they heard he was.

And whatever village or town or farm he went to, they would lay their sick in the market-place and beg him to let them touch just the tassel of his cloak, and all who touched it were cured.

The Pharisees gathered about him with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem.

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not observe the rules handed down by our ancestors, but eat food without purifying their hands?"

you let him off from doing anything more for his father or mother,

He called the people to him again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand this.

Nothing that goes into a man from outside can pollute him. It is what comes out of a man that pollutes him."

When he had left the crowd and gone home, his disciples asked him what he meant by this figure.

And he said to them, "Have not even you any understanding then? Do you not see that nothing that goes into a man from outside can pollute him,

He went on to say, "It is what comes out of a man that pollutes him.

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.

He took him off by himself away from the crowd, and put his fingers in the man's ears, and touched his tongue with saliva.

And he looked up to heaven and sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha!"??hich means "Open."

In those days when a great crowd had gathered again and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them,

The Pharisees came out and began a discussion with him, testing him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

how many baskets of pieces you picked up when I broke the five loaves in pieces for those five thousand men?" They said to him, "Twelve."

"When I broke the seven loaves in pieces for the four thousand, how many baskets of pieces did you pick up?" They said to him, "Seven."

And they came to Bethsaida. And people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him.

He took him by the hand and led him outside of the village, and spitting in his eyes he laid his hands on him and asked him, "Do you see anything?"

And he sent him home and said to him, "Do not even go into the village."

They said to him, "John the Baptist; others say Elijah, and others that you are one of the prophets."

And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to him, "You are the Christ."

And he warned them not to say this about him to anyone.

He told them this plainly. And Peter took him aside, and began to reprove him for it.

And he called the people and his disciples to him and said to them, "If anyone wants to go with me, he must disregard himself, and take his cross and follow me.

For if anyone is ashamed of me and my teachings in this unfaithful and sinful age, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of him, when he comes back in his Father's glory, with the holy angels."