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as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”—
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The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
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I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
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“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
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The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.
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The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.”
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That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed.
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Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
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Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”
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Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
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Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.
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Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
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Jesus Questioned About Fasting
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
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But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
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“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse.
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And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
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When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon.
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Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him.
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Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter,
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but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
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Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
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The Parable of the Sower
Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.
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Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?
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Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.
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“Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.
