Luke 4
EasyEnglish Bible
The Devil tries to make Jesus do wrong things
4 Then Jesus returned from the Jordan River.[a] He was full of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness. 2 He stayed there for 40 days and he did not eat anything. During this time the Devil tried to cause Jesus to do wrong things.[b] At the end of 40 days, Jesus was very hungry.
3 The Devil said to Jesus, ‘If you are the Son of God, speak to this stone. Tell it to become bread.’
4 ‘No!’ Jesus replied, ‘The Bible says that food alone cannot cause people to live.’[c]
5 After that, the Devil led Jesus up to a high place. In one moment, he showed Jesus all the countries in the whole world. 6 He said to Jesus, ‘I will let you rule the whole world. I will give you power over all these things. That power all belongs to me. So I can give it to anyone that I choose. 7 You must bend down low and worship me. Then I will give you power over the whole world.’[d]
8 ‘No!’ Jesus replied, ‘The Bible says,
“Only worship your Lord God.
He is the only one that you should obey.” ’[e]
9 The Devil now took Jesus to Jerusalem. He took him to stand on the highest part of the temple. Then he said to Jesus, ‘If you are the Son of God, jump down from here to the ground. 10 You know that the Bible says:
“God will tell his angels to keep you safe.”
11 “They will hold you safely in their hands.
They will not let you hurt your foot on a stone.” ’[f]
12 ‘No!’ Jesus replied. ‘The Bible says,
“Do not test the Lord God, to see if he will save you.” ’[g]
13 In those ways, the Devil tried to make Jesus do many wrong things. When he had finished this, he left Jesus alone. He waited for another chance.
Jesus goes to Nazareth
14 Then Jesus returned to Galilee. The Holy Spirit continued to give him power. Everyone who lived near there heard the news about him. 15 He taught people in the Jewish meeting places.[h] Everyone said good things about him.
16 Jesus went to Nazareth, the town where he had grown up. On the Jewish day of rest, he went to their meeting place.[i] This was what he usually did. He stood up to read aloud from the Bible.[j]
17 They gave him the scroll that had the messages of God's prophet Isaiah. Jesus opened the scroll. He found the place where Isaiah wrote:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is on me.
He has chosen me to tell good news to poor people.
He has sent me to tell people who are in prison, “You can go free!”
I must say to people that cannot see, “See again!”
I must cause people that are like slaves to become free.
19 I must tell everyone, “This is the year when God will be kind to his people.” ’[k]
20 When Jesus had read this to the people, he closed the scroll. He gave it back to an officer of the meeting place. Then he sat down to teach the people. Everyone in the meeting place was looking carefully at him.
21 Jesus said to them, ‘Today this message has become true. It has happened while you were listening.’
22 Everyone was talking about Jesus. They were surprised at the good way in which he spoke. They said to each other, ‘We know that he is only Joseph's son.’
23 Jesus then said to them, ‘Now you will tell me the proverb, “Doctor, make yourself well!” You will also say, “We have heard that you did many surprising things in Capernaum. This is your home town, so do the same things here!” 24 I tell you this: People do not accept a prophet of God who comes from their own town.
25 What I tell you is true. There were many widows in the country of Israel when Elijah was alive. At that time, it did not rain for three and a half years. So people were very hungry in all the country. 26 But God did not send Elijah to help a widow in Israel. Instead, God sent Elijah to the country called Sidon. There he helped a widow in a place called Zarephath.[l]
27 Here is another example: When God's prophet Elisha was alive, there were many people in Israel with a bad disease of the skin. But God did not make any of them well. Instead, he made a man well who was from the country called Syria. That man was called Naaman.’[m]
28 The people in the meeting place heard what Jesus said.[n] They became very angry. 29 They stood up and they made him leave the town. They took him to the top of the hill outside the town. They wanted to throw him over the edge to the bottom. 30 But Jesus walked through the middle of the crowd and he went away.
Jesus causes a bad spirit to leave a man
31 Jesus went to a town in Galilee called Capernaum. On the Jewish day of rest, he taught the people there. 32 The people were very surprised at the things that Jesus taught them. He spoke with authority. 33 There was a sick man in the meeting place. He had a spirit of a bad demon that was living inside him. The spirit caused the man to shout loudly. 34 He said, ‘Jesus from Nazareth, leave us alone! Do not destroy us! I know who you are. You are God's Holy One!’
35 Jesus said to the spirit, ‘Be quiet! Come out of the man!’ Then the bad spirit caused the man to fall to the ground in front of the people. It came out of the man but it did not hurt him.
36 All the people were very surprised and they said to each other, ‘Listen to what this man says! He has power and authority. He tells bad spirits to come out of people, and they come out.’ 37 So they began to tell everyone about Jesus. Because of this, people in all the places near Capernaum heard the news about Jesus.
Jesus makes many people well
38 Jesus then left the meeting place and he went to Simon's home. The mother of Simon's wife was ill and her body was very hot. So they asked Jesus to make her well. 39 Jesus came and he stood near her. He told the illness to go away and immediately she was well again. She got up and she prepared food for her visitors.
40 When the sun was going down, people in the town brought to Jesus all those people who were ill. They had many different kinds of illness. Jesus put his hands on each ill person and they became well again.
41 Also, bad spirits came out of many people. They were shouting, ‘You are the Son of God.’ The spirits knew that Jesus was the Messiah. Because of this, Jesus stopped them. He would not let them speak.
42 Early the next morning, Jesus went to a place where he could be alone. The people went to look for him. When they found him they said, ‘Do not leave us! Please stay here with us.’ 43 Jesus replied, ‘I must go to other towns to tell everyone the good news. I will tell them how God rules in the lives of his people. That is what God sent me to do.’
44 Then he travelled to many towns in the country called Judea. He went into the Jewish meeting places and taught people there.
Footnotes
- 4:1 Jesus was soon to start the work that God sent him to do.
- 4:2 The Devil is an angel that refused to obey God. He also tries to cause people to do bad things.
- 4:4 The Devil knew that Jesus was very hungry, so he gave him the idea to make stones into food. Jesus knew that he had power to do anything. But he wanted only to obey God. He could make stones into food. But that was not what God wanted. Our bodies are not the most important part of us. Jesus came to give us food for our spirits. That part of us is more important. Jesus knew what God said in his book. And he answered the Devil with words from Deuteronomy 8:3.
- 4:7 The Devil was telling Jesus that his work could be easier. He would let Jesus rule the world now, if he would obey him. Jesus knew that this was wrong. He knew that he must obey only God.
- 4:8 Jesus was speaking the words in Deuteronomy 6:13.
- 4:11 The Devil was using the words from Psalms 91:11-12. But he was not using them in a right way.
- 4:12 Jesus was speaking words from Deuteronomy 6:16. He was standing on the highest part of the temple. This was 600 metres above the ground. He knew that God did not want him to jump. We must not get into danger just to see God save us.
- 4:15 Jews used their meeting places to pray together and to learn more about God.
- 4:16 The Jewish day of rest is our Saturday. This was a special day for them, when nobody worked.
- 4:16 The Bible that the Jews read was the Old Testament. See Isaiah 58:6; 61:1-2.
- 4:19 Jesus read the words from Isaiah 61:1-2, but he changed them a bit.
- 4:26 We can read about this widow in 1 Kings 17:7-24.
- 4:27 We can read about Naaman in 2 Kings 5.
- 4:28 Jesus told the people in the meeting place about himself. But they did not like the things that he was saying. They refused to believe that God had sent him.
Luke 4
Living Bible
4 1-2 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan River, being urged by the Spirit out into the barren wastelands of Judea, where Satan tempted him for forty days. He ate nothing all that time and was very hungry.
3 Satan said, “If you are God’s Son, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
4 But Jesus replied, “It is written in the Scriptures, ‘Other things in life are much more important than bread!’”[a]
5 Then Satan took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; 6-7 and the devil told him, “I will give you all these splendid kingdoms and their glory—for they are mine to give to anyone I wish—if you will only get down on your knees and worship me.”
8 Jesus replied, “We must worship God, and him alone. So it is written in the Scriptures.”
9-11 Then Satan took him to Jerusalem to a high roof of the Temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say that God will send his angels to guard you and to keep you from crashing to the pavement below!”
12 Jesus replied, “The Scriptures also say, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to a foolish test.’”
13 When the devil had ended all the temptations, he left Jesus for a while and went away.
14 Then Jesus returned to Galilee, full of the Holy Spirit’s power. Soon he became well known throughout all that region 15 for his sermons in the synagogues; everyone praised him.
16 When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on Saturday, and stood up to read the Scriptures. 17 The book of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he opened it to the place where it says:
18-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that captives shall be released and the blind shall see, that the downtrodden shall be freed from their oppressors, and that God is ready to give blessings to all who come to him.”[b]
20 He closed the book and handed it back to the attendant and sat down, while everyone in the synagogue gazed at him intently. 21 Then he added, “These Scriptures came true today!”
22 All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed by the beautiful words that fell from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
23 Then he said, “Probably you will quote me that proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself’—meaning, ‘Why don’t you do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum?’ 24 But I solemnly declare to you that no prophet is accepted in his own hometown! 25-26 For example, remember how Elijah the prophet used a miracle to help the widow of Zarephath—a foreigner from the land of Sidon. There were many Jewish widows needing help in those days of famine, for there had been no rain for three and a half years, and hunger stalked the land; yet Elijah was not sent to them. 27 Or think of the prophet Elisha, who healed Naaman, a Syrian, rather than the many Jewish lepers needing help.”
28 These remarks stung them to fury; 29 and jumping up, they mobbed him and took him to the edge of the hill on which the city was built, to push him over the cliff. 30 But he walked away through the crowd and left them.
31 Then he returned to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and preached there in the synagogue every Saturday. 32 Here, too, the people were amazed at the things he said. For he spoke as one who knew the truth, instead of merely quoting the opinions of others as his authority.
33 Once as he was teaching in the synagogue, a man possessed by a demon began shouting at Jesus, 34 “Go away! We want nothing to do with you, Jesus from Nazareth. You have come to destroy us. I know who you are—the Holy Son of God.”
35 Jesus cut him short. “Be silent!” he told the demon. “Come out!” The demon threw the man to the floor as the crowd watched, and then left him without hurting him further.
36 Amazed, the people asked, “What is in this man’s words that even demons obey him?” 37 The story of what he had done spread like wildfire throughout the whole region.
38 After leaving the synagogue that day, he went to Simon’s home where he found Simon’s mother-in-law very sick with a high fever. “Please heal her,” everyone begged.
39 Standing at her bedside he spoke to the fever, rebuking it, and immediately her temperature returned to normal, and she got up and prepared a meal for them![c]
40 As the sun went down that evening, all the villagers who had any sick people in their homes, no matter what their diseases were, brought them to Jesus; and the touch of his hands healed every one! 41 Some were possessed by demons; and the demons came out at his command, shouting, “You are the Son of God.” But because they knew he was the Christ, he stopped them and told them to be silent.
42 Early the next morning he went out into the desert. The crowds searched everywhere for him, and when they finally found him, they begged him not to leave them but to stay at Capernaum. 43 But he replied, “I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other places too, for that is why I was sent.” 44 So he continued to travel around preaching in synagogues throughout Judea.
Footnotes
- Luke 4:4 Other things in life are much more important than bread, literally, “Man shall not live by bread alone,” compare Deuteronomy 8:3.
- Luke 4:18 to give blessings to all who come to him, literally, “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
- Luke 4:39 prepared a meal for them, literally, “ministered unto them.”
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