1 Some days later when Jesus entered Capernaum again the news spread, "He is in the house";

2 and at once such a crowd gathered that there was no longer room for them, even around the door.

3 While he was speaking his message, they came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four men.

4 When they could not get him near to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof under which he stood, and after making an opening, they let down the cot on which the paralytic was lying.

5 Then Jesus, when he perceived their faith, said to the paralytic, "Son your sins are forgiven."

6 But there were some Scribes sitting there who reasoned in their hearts.

7 "Why does this man speak like this? He blasphemes. Who is able to forgive sins but One, God himself?"

8 Jesus clearly perceived at once be the Spirit that they were thus reasoning in their hearts and said to them.

9 "Why do you reason thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise, take up your cot and walk?

10 But to let you see that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -he said to the paralytic-

11 "I bid you rise, take up your cot, and go home."

12 The man rose, at once took up his cot, and went out before them all; at which they were all astounded, and gave God glory, saying, "We never saw anything like this."

13 Then Jesus went again to the seaside, and the whole crowd kept coming to him, and he taught them.

14 As he was passing by he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax-office; and he said to him, "Follow me." So he rose and followed him.

15 Later on Levi was sitting at table in his house, and together with Jesus and his disciples a number of tax-gatherers and sinners were guests, for there were many of them who used to follow him.

16 But when some scribes of the Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax-gatherers, they said to his disciples, "Is he eating and drinking with tax-gatherers and sinners?"

17 On hearing this Jesus said to them. "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

18 Now the disciples of Johnand the Pharisees were keeping a fast, and people came to ask him, "How is it that the disciples of Johnand the Pharisees are fasting, but your disciples are not?"

19 "Can friends of the bridegroom fast while he is still with them?" asked Jesus. "As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

20 But the days will come when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them; then, on that day, they will fast.

21 No one ever sews a piece of unshrunk cloth onto an old garment, otherwise the patch tears away from it - the new from the old - and a worse tear is made.

22 And no one ever pours new wine into old wine-skins, else the wine would burst the skins, and both wine and skins would be lost. New wine is poured into fresh wine-skins.

23 One Sabbath he was walking along through the wheat-fields, and his disciples, as they began to make their way across, were pulling the heads of wheat.

24 "Look," said the Pharisees to him, "Why are they doing on the Sabbath Day what is against the law?"

25 He answered them. "Have you never read what David did when he was needy and hungry, he and his men?

26 How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which none but priests may eat, and gave some to his men?

27 "The Sabbath," he told them, "was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath;

28 so the Son of man is Master even of the Sabbath."