¹⁴ And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, ¹⁵ and to have authority to cast out the demons. ¹⁶ And He appointed the twelve: ^(A)Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), ^17 [a]James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of ^[b]James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”); ¹⁸ and Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, ^[c]James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, and Simon the ^[d]Zealot; ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.

²⁰ And He *came ^[e](B)home, and the ^(C)crowd *gathered again, ^(D)to such an extent that they could not even eat ^[f]a meal. ²¹ And when ^(E)His own ^[g]people heard about this, they came out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “^(F)He has lost His senses.” ²² The scribes who came down ^(G)from Jerusalem were saying, “He ^[h]is possessed by ^[i](H)Beelzebul,” and “^(I)He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” ^23 (J)And so He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in ^(K)parables: “How can ^(L)Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if ^(M)Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but ^[j]he is finished! ^27 (N)But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.