Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

5 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^[a] Beth-zatha,^[b] which has five porticoes.^{(A) 3} In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people.^{[c] 5} One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” ⁷ The ill man answered him, “Sir,^[d] I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”^{(B) 9} At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a Sabbath.^(C)

Jesus Heals a Paralytic

2 When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. ² So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door, and he was speaking the word to them.^{(A) 3} Then some people^[a] came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.^{(B) 4} And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, ⁷ “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”^{(C) 8} At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves, and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— ¹¹ “I say to you, stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.” ¹² And he stood up and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”^(D)

Jesus Calls Levi

¹³ Jesus^[b] went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them.^{(E) 14} As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.^(F)

¹⁵ And as he sat at dinner^[c] in Levi’s^[d] house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting^[e] with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the scribes of^[f] the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat^[g] with tax collectors and sinners?”^{(G) 17} When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”^(H)