Mark 9:2-13

New Testament for Everyone

The transfiguration

² A week later, Jesus took Peter, James and John away by themselves, and went up a high mountain. There he was transformed before their eyes. ³ His clothes shone with a whiteness that no laundry on earth could match. ⁴ Elijah appeared to them, and Moses too, and they were talking with Jesus.

⁵ “Teacher,” said Peter as he saw this, “it’s great to be here! Let’s make three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah!” ⁶ (He didn’t know what to say; they were terrified.)

⁷ Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud: “This is my son, the one I love. Listen to him!”

⁸ Then, quite suddenly, they looked round and saw nobody there anymore, only Jesus with them.

⁹ As they came down the mountain, Jesus instructed them not to talk to anyone about what they had seen, “until,” he said, “the son of man has been raised from the dead.” ¹⁰ They held on to this saying among themselves, puzzling about what this “rising from the dead” might mean.

¹¹ “Why then,” they asked him, “do the legal experts say ‘Elijah must come first’?”

¹² “Elijah does come first,” he replied, “and his job is to put everything straight. But what do you think it means that ‘the son of man must suffer many things and be treated with contempt’? ¹³ Actually, listen to this: Elijah has already come, and they did to him whatever they wanted. That’s what scripture said about him.”