2 The prophet Isayah wrote:[ref]

“See, I am sending my messenger to you,

the one who will be preparing your path.

3 [ref]The voice out in the wilderness shouting,

‘Get the path ready for the master;

Make it smooth for him to travel on.’ ”

4 Yohan turned up in the wilderness announcing that people should get immersed in water in order to show that their sins have been forgiven. 5 And many from the Yudean region and from the city of Yerusalem went out to hear him, and they confessed their sins and asked Yohan to immerse them in the Yordan river.

6 [ref]Yohan was dressed in simple clothes made from camel hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. 7 And he also announced, “There’s a greater man coming soon—in fact I’m not even good enough to bend down and untie his sandals. 8 I immersed you in water, but he will immerse you all in God’s holy spirit.”

9 (Figure skipped)Then one day Yeshua came from Nazareth in the Galilee region, and he got immersed in the Yordan river by Yohan. 10 As Yeshua came up out of the water, he saw the sky being opened up, and God’s spirit coming down on him like a dove. 11 [ref]And a voice came from the sky saying, “You are my son who I love and am pleased with.”

12 And then the spirit sent him into the wilderness 13 where he was tested by Satan for forty days. He was out there with the wild animals, but messengers waited on him there.

14 After Yohan had been arrested, Yeshua went back up to Galilee announcing the good news from God 15 [ref]saying, “The promised time is here, and God’s kingdom is now near. Turn from your sins and believe this good news.”

16 As he went around the lake of Galilee, Yeshua saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the lake. 17 And he said to them, “Come with me and I will make you into fishermen of people.” 18 And so they left their fishing work and went off with Yeshua.

19 Then a bit further on he saw two of Zebedee’s sons, Yacob and his brother Yohan, in a boat getting their nets ready. 20 Yeshua called them and they too went off with him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.

21 They went on into Capernaum where he went into the meeting hall and began teaching as soon as the rest day started. 22 [ref]The congregation was amazed at his teaching, because he taught with authority, not like the regular teachers there.

23 Then a demon-possessed man in the meeting hall suddenly yelled out, 24 “What are we to you, Yeshua of Nazareth? You’ve come to destroy us. I know that you’re God’s holy one.”

25 But Yeshua scolded it, saying, “Keep quiet!”, and, “Come out of him!”

26 Then the demon threw the man into a convulsion, cried out loudly, and left him. 27 Everyone was astounded and asked each other, “What just happened? We haven’t heard anything like this before—he has authority to command demons, and they obey him!”

28 And the news about Yeshua spread all over the entire region of Galilee.

29 After leaving the meeting hall, Yeshua went into the home of Simon and Andrew, along with Yacob and Yohan. 30 Inside, Simon’s mother-in-law was lying down with a fever, and the others spoke to Yeshua about her. 31 When he went up to her, and took hold of her hand and helped her up, the fever left her and she prepared something for them to eat.

32 That evening when the sun set, the people brought all those who were sick or demon-possessed to Yeshua. 33 It seemed like the entire town had gathered there outside the front door. 34 Yeshua healed many who were sick from a range of diseases, and he commanded many demons to leave—not allowing them to speak because they knew that he was the messiah.

35 In the small hours of the morning, Yeshua got up and went out to a quiet place and prayed there. 36 But Simon and the others came looking for him, 37 and when they found him they said, “Everyone’s looking for you!”

38 And Yeshua answered, “Well, we’ll be going into the other villages around here, so that I can also tell them. That’s what I came here for.” 39 [ref]Then he went preaching in all their meeting halls in Galilee and driving out demons.

40 A man with leprosy came to Yeshua asking him, “I know that you could heal me if you wanted to.”

41 Yeshua felt compassion for him, reached out his hand and touched him, and said, “Yes, I will. Get well.” 42 Then immediately the leprosy disappeared and he was well again. 43 So Yeshua sent him away, but warned him: 44 [ref]“Don’t talk to anyone—just go to the priest and show him that you’re well, and as a testimony of that, make the offering that Moses commanded.”

45 But after the man left, he started telling lots of people and spreading the news—so much so that Yeshua could no longer come into the town but had to stay out in quieter places, and people kept coming to him.

2 When Yeshua came back to Capernaum after a few days, people soon heard that he was back in the house. 2 And so many people turned up there that there wasn’t any room left—not even in the doorway. Inside, Yeshua was explaining the Scriptures to them. 3 Four men arrived, carrying a paralysed man to Yeshua, 4 but because of the crowd, they were unable to get close. So they climbed up onto the flat roof, made a hole through it, and lowered the paralysed man lying on a pallet. 5 Yeshua, observing their faith, said to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”[fn]

6 But some of the religious teachers were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why’s he talking like that? He’s seriously insulting God. There’s only one who can forgive sins, and that’s God himself.”

8 Then Yeshua, knowing in his spirit that they are thinking like that, said to them, “Why are you thinking that to yourselves? 9 Which is easier: to tell the paralysed man that his sins have been forgiven, or to tell him to pick up his bedding and walk? 10 But so you all can see that humanity’s child does have authority here on the earth to forgive sins,” he turned and said to the paralysed man, 11 “Listen. Get up, take your bedding, and go home!”

12 So the man stood up, and picked up his bedding, and went out of the house where everyone saw him and marvelled and praised God saying, “We’ve never seen anything happen like this before!”

13 Yeshua went out beside the lake where crowds of people kept coming to him and he taught them. 14 And as he was passing by the tax office, he saw Levi Alphaeus sitting there and said to him, “Come along with me.” So Levi stood up and followed Yeshua.

15 Yeshua ended up having a meal at Levi’s place, and many other tax collectors and undesirables were sitting there also, along with Yeshua’s followers, because by then many were following him around. 16 And the teachers from the Pharisee party noticed that Yeshua was eating beside undesirables and tax-collectors. So they asked his followers, “How come he eats with tax-collectors and other low-life?”

17 And overhearing them, Yeshua said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—it’s the sick ones that do. I didn’t come here to help those who think they have no needs, but to call sinners.”

18 Now the followers of Yohan-the-Immerser and members of the Pharisees regularly fasted. So a small group came to Yeshua and asked, “How come Yohan’s followers and the Pharisee party fast regularly, yet your followers don’t?”

19 And Yeshua answered, “Can the friends of the groom fast when they’re celebrating along with him? No, as long as he’s still there, they won’t be fasting. 20 But in the future, the groom will be taken away from them, and then they’ll be fasting.

21 “No one sews a patch of new, unshrunken cloth onto an old garment, because the new patch will tear away from that old fabric and it will end up as a worse tear. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, because the wine will burst the already stretched wineskins, and then both the wine and the wineskins will be destroyed. New wine must be put into new wineskins.”

23 [ref]And it so happened that Yeshua and his followers passed through some fields of grain on some days of rest. As they went through, they plucked off some heads of grain. 24 And some members of the Pharisee party said, “It’s breaking the law to harvest grain on a rest day!”

25 And Yeshua replied, “You’ve read yourselves what David did when him and his men were hungry. 26 [ref]They went into God’s tent and ate the holy bread representing the presence of God. Only the priests were allowed to eat that, and yet David even gave some to his men!” 27 And he told the Pharisees, “The days of rest were created for people, not people for the rest days. 28 So I, humanity’s child, have authority also over the day of rest.”

3 And again another time, Yeshua went to the meeting hall and there was a man there with a curled-up hand. 2 The religious leaders there were watching him closely to see if he would heal the man on the rest day, and then if he did, they would have a case against him. 3 Then Yeshua said to the man with the flawed hand, “Stand up there in the middle.” 4 And he asked the leaders, “Is it allowable to do good on the rest day, or only to do evil? To save life, or to kill?” But they didn’t reply.

5 After angrily looking around at them, grieving at their complete lack of compassion, he said to the man, “Open up your hand!” 6 The man stretched out his fingers, and his hand became totally normal. But the Pharisees quickly left, and meeting with King Herod’s supporters, they conspired to kill Yeshua.

7 After that, Yeshua withdrew towards the lake with his followers, and a huge crowd of people from the regions of both Galilee and down in Yudea, 8 along with others from Yerusalem, Idumea, from across the Yordan River, and from up near Tyre and Tsidon. They came because they had heard about the amazing things he had done. 9 [ref]So Yeshua asked his apprentices to organise a small boat to be there for him so he wouldn’t be cramped by the press of the crowd. 10 Virtually anyone who had any physical issues was pressing towards him to touch him, because he had already healed so many. 11 And the demons, whenever they saw Yeshua, they fell down to the ground in front of him and yelled out, “You are God’s son!” 12 But he regularly warned them not to reveal who he was.

13 As Yeshua started climbing up a hill, he called the followers that he had selected, and they went off with him. 14 He appointed twelve of them as his representatives so that they could stick with him and be sent off to be proclaiming his message 15 and to also have authority to exorcise demons.

16 These are the twelve that he appointed: Simon (but he appended the name “Peter”), 17 Yacob and his brother Yohan who were Zebedee’s sons (and he nicknamed them the “sons of thunder”), 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Yacob Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon from Canaan, 19 and Yudas Iscariot who later betrayed him.

20 Then Yeshua was approaching a house, but the crowd swarmed them again so they had no opportunity to eat. 21 The ones with him heard all the noise and came to get him, because they were wondering if he was crazy.

22 [ref]The religious teachers had come up from Yerusalem and were complaining, “He’s possessed by the prince of demons. He can command them because he rules them!”

23 But Yeshua addressed them: “How could Satan command himself? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom could never prosper. 25 If a household is divided against itself, that family will never prosper. 26 So if Satan attacked himself and was split, he couldn’t possibly be powerful, but his time would be over.

27 On the contrary, no one can enter a strong man’s house to clean out his possessions unless he first ties up that strong man—after that he can work on the goods.

28 Honestly, I assure you that any sin of a person can be forgiven, no matter how much they curse God. 29 [ref]But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is eternally responsible for their sin.” 30 (He said this because they were saying that he was demon-possessed.)

31 Now Yeshua’s mother and brothers came and were standing outside and asked someone to tell him that they were there. 32 Some in the crowd sitting around him told Yeshua that his mother and brothers were waiting outside for him.

33 But Yeshua answered, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” 34 And having looked around at the people sitting here, he said, “Actually, you all are my mother and my brothers. 35 Anyone who obeys God, that person is my brother and my sister and my mother.”

4 [ref]Again Yeshua started teaching by the edge of the lake. A huge crowd gathered around him, but he had boarded the boat floating in the water, and all the people were there on the land. 2 And he taught them many different things in parables, including this one: 3 “Listen. Once there was a farmer who went to spread some seed. 4 As he spread it, some landed on the path, and the birds came and feed on it. 5 Some landed on a rocky part without a lot of soil, and it quickly sprouted in the warm, shallow soil, 6 but when the sun came up, it dried out because the roots weren’t deep, and so it just withered up. 7 Some of the seed landed in a thistle patch, and the thistles grew and choked it out, so the plants never bore a crop. 8 But some seed landed in fertile soil and it bore a harvest—some of it multiplying thirty times, some sixty, and some a hundred times.”

9 Then Yeshua added, “Anyone who wants to understand, let them consider it.”

10 And when the crowd had left, the twelve apprentices asked him about the parables. 11 And he told them, “You’ve been given understanding about God’s kingdom, but for others, they’ll get it in parables

12 [ref]so that when they look they might see but not perceive,

and when they listen, they might hear but not understand,

otherwise they might turn from their sins and be forgiven.”

13 Then Yeshua said to them, “If you didn’t understand this parable, how will you understand any others? 14 The one spreading seed is spreading the good message. 15 And there are some along the path where the good message is being spread, who hear, but Satan turns up immediately and snatches the message from them. 16 And similarly, there’s some that falls onto rocky places where the people who hear the good message happily accept it, 17 but don’t make strong roots, just temporary changes. So when they get mocked or attacked about accepting the good message, they quickly stumble. 18 Others are the ones where the seed was spread among the thistles. They heard the good message, 19 but contemporary topics, or the lure of money, or the appetite for other things choke their good intentions and the message becomes unfruitful in them. 20 But lastly, the seed that landed on the good soil represents the people who hear the good message, accept it and are fruitful thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times over.”

21 [ref]And Yeshua told them, “Obviously no one goes and gets a lamp, and then puts it under a basket or under the bed, but rather places it somewhere higher on a stand. 22 [ref]You see, nothing is hidden that won’t eventually be disclosed, and there’s no secret that won’t eventually be revealed. 23 Anyone who wants to understand, let them listen carefully.”

24 [ref]And he continued, “Take care what you listen to. Because how much you judge others, so too will judgement be handed out to you, and even more. 25 [ref]Anyone who has faith will be given a reward, but if you have none, even the little you have will be taken away.”

26 And then, “God’s kingdom is like a person throwing some seed onto the ground. 27 Whether the person sleeps at night or stays up night and day, the seed will sprout and grow either way, and they don’t know how it does it. 28 The earth is designed to multiply the seed: first a sprout appears, then a bigger plant, and then the full head of grain. 29 [ref]And when it’s ripe, then the harvester is sent in because it’s ready for harvest.”

30 Again he said, “What could we like God’s kingdom to? Or what parable could we explain it with? 31 It’s like planting a mustard seed in the ground—a very small seed. 32 But when it’s planted and grows up, it forms a large bush with many branches so that birds can rest in its shade.”

33 And so as much as they could handle it, Yeshua shared the good message with them via many similar word pictures. 34 He never spoke without these illustrations, but he explained all of them to his close followers.

35 It was already becoming evening on that day, so Yeshua said to his apprentices, “Let’s all go across to the other shore.” 36 So they left the crowd behind and got into the boat with him. 37 Out in the lake a big storm came up with strong winds, and the waves started breaking across the boat and filling it. 38 But Yeshua slept on in the back, sleeping on a cushion. They woke him and cried, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re all about to drown?”

39 Now awake, Yeshua scolded the wind and waves, “Quieten down! Stop that!” Then the wind died down and the water became very calm. 40 And turning back to them he asked, “Why were you all so afraid? Don’t you have any faith yet?”

41 But now they were very afraid again and asked each other, “Who could this man be that both the wind and waves obey him?”

5 So they got safely to the region of Gerasenes on the other side of the lake. 2 As Yeshua climbed out of the boat, a demon-possessed man came out of the tombs to meet him. 3 He lived in those tombs, and no one could tie him up, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been tied up in the past with shackles and chains but had always pulled the chains apart and smashed the shackles, and no one was able to subdue him. 5 All through the day and night, whether in the tombs or up in the hills, he was yelling out and hurting himself with stones.

6 So when he had seen Yeshua in the distance, he ran and as a sign of honour fell to the ground in front of him. 7 Then he called out very loudly, “What will happen between us, Yeshua, the son of the highest God? I beg you in God’s name not to torment me.” 8 Because Yeshua had already started saying, “Come out of the man you ungodly spirit!”

9 Yeshua asked, “What’s your name?”

The man answered, “My name is ‘Thousands’ because there’s many of us,” 10 and he begged Yeshua not to send them out of the country.

11 It just so happened that there was a large herd of pigs being fed on the hill nearby 12 and they begged Yeshua again saying, “Send us to the pigs so that we can enter them.” 13 Yeshua agreed to that, so the ungodly spirits came out of the man, went into the pigs, and the entire herd of some two thousand pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned.

14 The ones who had been feeding them rushed off and spread the news around in the city and the surrounding area. So the people hurried out to see what had happened. 15 When they arrived where Yeshua was, they saw the man who had been demon-possessed fully-clothed and sitting there in full control of his senses. They knew it was the man called ‘Thousands’ and they became frightened. 16 Those who had seen it all happen described it all to the people—what had happened both to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.

17 So then the people began asking Yeshua to go away from their region.

18 As Yeshua was climbing back into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed wanted to go with him.

19 But Yeshua wouldn’t let him and told him to head back home to his own people, and explain to them what the Master had done for him and how he had been merciful to him.

20 So he went away and shared with the people of the Ten Cities region what Yeshua had done for him, and they were all amazed.