Gospel according to Mark 2

¹ When he returned to Capernaum some time later, word went round that he was back;

² and so many people collected that there was no room left, even in front of the door. He was preaching the word to them

³ when some people came bringing him a paralytic carried by four men,

⁴ but as the crowd made it impossible to get the man to him, they stripped the roof over the place where Jesus was; and when they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic lay.

⁵ Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven’.

⁶ Now some scribes were sitting there, and they thought to themselves,

⁷ ‘How can this man talk like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God?’

⁸ Jesus, inwardly aware that this was what they were thinking, said to them, ‘Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts?

⁹ Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven” or to say, “Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk”?

¹⁰ But to prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ –

¹¹ he said to the paralytic – I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher, and go off home.’

¹² And the man got up, picked up his stretcher at once and walked out in front of everyone, so that they were all astounded and praised God saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this’.

¹³ He went out again to the shore of the lake;[*a] and all the people came to him, and he taught them.

¹⁴ As he was walking on he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus, sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me’. And he got up and followed him.

¹⁵ When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at the table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers.

¹⁶ When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’

¹⁷ When Jesus heard this he said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’

¹⁸ One day when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came and said to him, ‘Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’

¹⁹ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of fasting while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they could not think of fasting.

²⁰ But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will fast.

²¹ No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; if he does, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.

²² And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine, fresh skins!’

²³ One sabbath day he happened to be taking a walk through the cornfields, and his disciples began to pick ears of corn as they went along.

²⁴ And the Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing something on the sabbath day that is forbidden?’

²⁵ And he replied, ‘Did you never read what David did in his time of need when he and his followers were hungry –

²⁶ how he went into the house of God when Abiathar[*b] was high priest, and ate the loaves of offering which only the priests are allowed to eat, and how he also gave some to the men with him?’

²⁷ And he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath;

²⁸ the Son of Man is master even of the sabbath’.