Mark 2:15-28

Common English Bible

¹⁵ Jesus sat down to eat at Levi’s house. Many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples. Indeed, many of them had become his followers. ¹⁶ When some of the legal experts from among the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why is he eating with sinners and tax collectors?”

¹⁷ When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

When to fast

¹⁸ John’s disciples and the Pharisees had a habit of fasting. Some people asked Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but yours don’t?”

¹⁹ Jesus said, “The wedding guests can’t fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they can’t fast. ²⁰ But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

²¹ “No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes; otherwise, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear. ²² No one pours new wine into old leather wineskins; otherwise, the wine would burst the wineskins and the wine would be lost and the wineskins destroyed. But new wine is for new wineskins.”

Scripture and the Sabbath

²³ Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. As the disciples made their way, they were picking the heads of wheat. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! Why are they breaking the Sabbath law?”

²⁵ He said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he was in need, when he and those with him were hungry? ²⁶ During the time when Abiathar was high priest, David went into God’s house and ate the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. He also gave bread to those who were with him.” ²⁷ Then he said, “The Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the Sabbath. ²⁸ This is why the Human One^[a] is Lord even over the Sabbath.”