Luke 5:27-39

Christian Standard Bible

The Call of Levi

²⁷ After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office,^(A) and he said to him, “Follow me.” ²⁸ So, leaving everything behind, he got up and began to follow him.

²⁹ Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for him at his house. Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at the table with them.^{(B) 30} But the Pharisees and their scribes^(C) were complaining to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹ Jesus replied to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

A Question about Fasting

³³ Then they said to him, “John’s disciples fast often and say prayers, and those of the Pharisees do the same, but yours eat and drink.”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “You can’t make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you? ³⁵ But the time^[a] will come^(D) when the groom will be taken away from them—then they will fast in those days.”

³⁶ He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise, not only will he tear the new, but also the piece from the new garment will not match the old. ³⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, it will spill, and the skins will be ruined. ³⁸ No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.^{[b] 39} And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says, ‘The old is better.’”^[c]