Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners^(A)

¹³ Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him,^(B) and he began to teach them.

The Calling of Matthew^(A)

⁹ As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,”^(B) he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

¹⁵ While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees^(A) saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”^(B)

¹⁷ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”^(C)

¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’^[a](A) For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”^(B)