Famine, Sword, and Death

16 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. ³ For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: ^4 (A)They shall die of deadly diseases. ^(B)They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. ^(C)They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ^(D)They shall perish by the sword and by famine, ^(E)and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵ “For thus says the Lord: ^(F)Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the Lord. ⁶ Both great and small shall die in this land. ^(G)They shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or ^(H)cut himself ^(I)or make himself bald for them. ⁷ No one shall ^(J)break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. ⁸ You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. ⁹ For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(K)Behold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰ “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ^(L)‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹ then you shall say to them: ^(M)‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and ^(N)have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹² and because ^(O)you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, ^(P)every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³ Therefore ^(Q)I will hurl you out of this land into ^(R)a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, ^(S)and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

The Lord Will Restore Israel

^14 (T)“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ^(U)‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ¹⁵ but ^(V)‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel ^(W)out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For ^(X)I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶ “Behold, ^(Y)I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out ^(Z)of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷ For ^(AA)my eyes are on all their ways. ^(AB)They are not hidden from me, ^(AC)nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸ But first ^(AD)I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and ^(AE)have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

²¹ “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that ^(AK)my name is the Lord.”

Jesus Heals a Paralytic

2 And when he returned to ^(A)Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. ² And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. ^3 (B)And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. ⁴ And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, ^(C)they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. ⁵ And when Jesus ^(D)saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, ^(E)your sins are forgiven.” ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ⁷ “Why does this man speak like that? ^(F)He is blaspheming! ^(G)Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ And immediately Jesus, ^(H)perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? ¹⁰ But that you may know that ^(I)the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— ¹¹ “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” ¹² And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and ^(J)glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Jesus Calls Levi

¹³ He went out again beside the sea, and ^(K)all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. ^14 (L)And as he passed by, he saw ^(M)Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

¹⁵ And as he reclined at table in his house, many ^(N)tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ And ^(O)the scribes of^[a] the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ^(P)“Why does he eat^[b] with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ^(Q)I came not to call the righteous, ^(R)but sinners.”

A Question About Fasting

¹⁸ Now ^(S)John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, ^(T)“Why do John's disciples and ^(U)the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁹ And Jesus said to them, ^(V)“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ^20 (W)The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and ^(X)then they will fast in that day. ²¹ No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. ²² And no one puts new wine into old ^(Y)wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”^[c]

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath

^23 (Z)One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples ^(AA)began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴ And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, ^(AB)why are they doing ^(AC)what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, ^(AD)“Have you never read ^(AE)what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: ²⁶ how he entered the house of God, in the time of^{[d] (AF)}Abiathar the high priest, and ate ^(AG)the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” ²⁷ And he said to them, ^(AH)“The Sabbath was made for man, ^(AI)not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So ^(AJ)the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”