Gospel according to Luke 5

¹ Now he was standing one day by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the crowd pressing round him listening to the word of God,

² when he caught sight of two boats close to the bank. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.-

³ He got into one of the boats-it was Simon’s-and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

⁴ When he had finished speaking he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch’.

⁵ ‘Master,’ Simon replied ‘we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’

⁶ And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear,

⁷ so they signalled to their companions in the other boat to come and help them; when these came, they filled the two boats to sinking point.

⁸ When Simon Peter saw this he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man’.

⁹ For he and all his companions were completely overcome by the catch they had made;

¹⁰ so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. But Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch’.

¹¹ Then, bringing their boats back to land, they left everything and followed him.

¹² Now Jesus was in one of the towns when a man appeared, covered with leprosy. Seeing Jesus he fell on his face and implored him. ‘Sir,’ he said ‘if you want to, you can cure me.’

¹³ Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, ‘Of course I want to! Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once.

¹⁴ He ordered him to tell no one, ‘But go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering for your healing as Moses prescribed it, as evidence for them’.

¹⁵ His reputation continued to grow, and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their sickness cured,

¹⁶ but he would always go off to some place where he could be alone and pray.

¹⁷ Now he was teaching one day, and among the audience there were Pharisees and doctors of the Law who had come from every village in Galilee, from Judaea and from Jerusalem. And the Power of the Lord was behind his works of healing.

¹⁸ Then some men appeared, carrying on a bed a paralysed man whom they were trying to bring in and lay down in front of him.

¹⁹ But as the crowd made it impossible to find a way of getting him in, they went up on to the flat roof and lowered him and his stretcher down through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, in front of Jesus.

²⁰ Seeing their faith he said, ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you’.

²¹ The scribes and the Pharisees began to think this over. ‘Who is this man talking blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’

²² But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, made them this reply, ‘What are these thoughts you have in your hearts?

²³ Which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven you” or to say, “Get up and walk”?

²⁴ But to prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’-he said to the paralysed man-‘I order you: get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’

²⁵ And immediately before their very eyes he got up, picked up what he had been lying on and went home praising God.

²⁶ They were all astounded and praised God, and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today’.

²⁷ When he went out after this, he noticed a tax collector, Levi by name, sitting by the customs house, and said to him, ‘Follow me’.

²⁸ And leaving everything he got up and followed him.

²⁹ In his honour Levi held a great reception in his house, and with them at table was a large gathering of tax collectors and others.

³⁰ The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples and said, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’

³¹ Jesus said to them in reply, ‘It is not those who are well who need the doctor, but the sick.

³² I have not come to call the virtuous, but sinners to repentance.’

³³ They then said to him, ‘John’s disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees too, but yours go on eating and drinking’.

³⁴ Jesus replied, ‘Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them?

³⁵ But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast.’

³⁶ He also told them this parable, ‘No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; if he does, not only will he have torn the new one, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.

³⁷ ‘And nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost.

³⁸ No; new wine must be put into fresh skins.

³⁹ And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. “The old is good” he says.’