Jesus Feeds Five Thousand^(A)

³⁰ The apostles returned and met with Jesus, and told him all they had done and taught. ³¹ There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn't even have time to eat. So he said to them, “Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest a while.” ³² So they started out in a boat by themselves to a lonely place.

³³ Many people, however, saw them leave and knew at once who they were; so they went from all the towns and ran ahead by land and arrived at the place ahead of Jesus and his disciples. ^34 (B)When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw this large crowd, and his heart was filled with pity for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things. ³⁵ When it was getting late, his disciples came to him and said, “It is already very late, and this is a lonely place. ³⁶ Send the people away, and let them go to the nearby farms and villages in order to buy themselves something to eat.”

³⁷ “You yourselves give them something to eat,” Jesus answered.

They asked, “Do you want us to go and spend two hundred silver coins^[a] on bread in order to feed them?”

³⁸ So Jesus asked them, “How much bread do you have? Go and see.”

When they found out, they told him, “Five loaves and also two fish.”

³⁹ Jesus then told his disciples to make all the people divide into groups and sit down on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So the people sat down in rows, in groups of a hundred and groups of fifty. ⁴¹ Then Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and gave thanks to God. He broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. ⁴² Everyone ate and had enough. ⁴³ Then the disciples took up twelve baskets full of what was left of the bread and the fish. ⁴⁴ The number of men who were fed was five thousand.

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand^(A)

¹⁰ The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He took them with him, and they went off by themselves to a town named Bethsaida. ¹¹ When the crowds heard about it, they followed him. He welcomed them, spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, and healed those who needed it.

¹² When the sun was beginning to set, the twelve disciples came to him and said, “Send the people away so that they can go to the villages and farms around here and find food and lodging, because this is a lonely place.”

¹³ But Jesus said to them, “You yourselves give them something to eat.”

They answered, “All we have are five loaves and two fish. Do you want us to go and buy food for this whole crowd?” ¹⁴ (There were about five thousand men there.)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Make the people sit down in groups of about fifty each.”

¹⁵ After the disciples had done so, ¹⁶ Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven, thanked God for them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. ¹⁷ They all ate and had enough, and the disciples took up twelve baskets of what was left over.

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand^(A)

6 After this, Jesus went across Lake Galilee (or, Lake Tiberias, as it is also called). ² A large crowd followed him, because they had seen his miracles of healing the sick. ³ Jesus went up a hill and sat down with his disciples. ⁴ The time for the Passover Festival was near. ⁵ Jesus looked around and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, so he asked Philip, “Where can we buy enough food to feed all these people?” (⁶ He said this to test Philip; actually he already knew what he would do.)

⁷ Philip answered, “For everyone to have even a little, it would take more than two hundred silver coins^[a] to buy enough bread.”

⁸ Another one of his disciples, Andrew, who was Simon Peter's brother, said, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five loaves of barley bread and two fish. But they will certainly not be enough for all these people.”

¹⁰ “Make the people sit down,” Jesus told them. (There was a lot of grass there.) So all the people sat down; there were about five thousand men. ¹¹ Jesus took the bread, gave thanks to God, and distributed it to the people who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, and they all had as much as they wanted. ¹² When they were all full, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces left over; let us not waste a bit.” ¹³ So they gathered them all and filled twelve baskets with the pieces left over from the five barley loaves which the people had eaten.

¹⁴ Seeing this miracle that Jesus had performed, the people there said, “Surely this is the Prophet^[b] who was to come into the world!”