⁵ Love^(A) the Lord your God with all your heart^(B) and with all your soul and with all your strength.^(C)

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking^(A) in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid^(B) from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”^(C)

¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid^(D) because I was naked;^(E) so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked?^(F) Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?^(G)”

¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me^(H)—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me,^(I) and I ate.”

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’^(Q)

⁴ You adulterous^(A) people,^[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world^(B) means enmity against God?^(C) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.^(D)

¹⁹ My dear children,^(A) for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,^(B)

Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man^(A)

2 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers^(B) that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man,^(C) carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”^(D)

⁶ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷ “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”^(E)

⁸ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰ But I want you to know that the Son of Man^(F) has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, ¹¹ “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God,^(G) saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”^(H)

¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life,^(A) and have it to the full.^(B)