Beginning
Parable of the sower
4 Once again Jesus began to teach beside the sea. A huge crowd gathered; so he got into a boat and stationed himself on the sea, with all the crowd on the shore looking out to sea. 2 He taught them lots of things in parables. This is how his teaching went.
3 “Listen!” he said. “Once upon a time there was a sower who went out sowing. 4 As he was sowing, some seed fell beside the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on the rock, where it didn’t have much soil. There was no depth to the ground, so it shot up at once; 6 but when the sun came up it was scorched, and withered away, because it hadn’t got any root. 7 Other seed fell in among thorns; the thorns grew up and choked it, and it didn’t give any crop. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil, and gave a harvest, which grew up and increased, and bore a yield, in some cases thirtyfold, in some sixtyfold, and in some a hundredfold.”
9 And he added, “If you’ve got ears, then listen!”
10 When they were alone, the people who were around Jesus, with the Twelve, asked him about the parables.
11 “The mystery of God’s kingdom is given to you,” he replied, “but for the people outside it’s all in parables, 12 so that ‘they may look and look but never see, and hear and hear but never understand; otherwise they would turn and be forgiven.’
13 “Don’t you understand the parable?” he said to them. “How are you going to understand all the parables?
14 “The sower sows the word. 15 The ones by the path are people who hear the word, but immediately the Accuser comes and takes away the word that has been sown in them. 16 The ones sown on the rock are those who hear the word and accept it with excitement, 17 but don’t have any root in themselves. They are short-term enthusiasts. When the word brings them trouble or hostility they quickly become disillusioned. 18 The others—the ones sown among thorns—are those who hear the word, 19 and the worries of the present age, and the deceit of riches, and desire for other kinds of things, come in and choke the word, so that it produces no fruit. 20 But the ones sown on good soil are the people who hear the word and receive it, and produce fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold.”
A lamp on its stand
21 Jesus said to them, “When you bring a lamp into a room, do you put it under a bucket, or under a bed? Of course not! It goes on a lampstand. 22 No: nothing is secret except what’s meant to be revealed, and nothing is covered up except what’s meant to be uncovered. 23 If you have ears, then listen!
24 “Be careful with what you hear,” he went on. “The scales you use will be used for you, and more so. 25 If you have something, you’ll be given more; but if you have nothing, even what you have will be taken away.”
More seed parables
26 “This is what God’s kingdom is like,” said Jesus. “Once upon a time a man sowed seed on the ground. 27 Every night he went to bed; every day he got up; and the seed sprouted and grew without him knowing how it did it. 28 The ground produces crops by itself: first the stalk, then the ear, then the complete corn in the ear. 29 But when the crop is ready, in goes the sickle at once, because harvest has arrived.
30 “What shall we say God’s kingdom is like?” he said. “What picture shall we give of it? 31 It’s like a grain of mustard seed. When it’s sown on the ground, it’s the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. 32 But when it’s sown, it springs up and becomes the biggest of all shrubs. It grows large branches, so that ‘the birds of the air make their nests’ within its shade.”
33 He used to tell them a lot of parables like this, speaking the word as much as they were able to hear. 34 He never spoke except in parables. But he explained everything to his own disciples in private.
Jesus calms the storm
35 That day, when it was evening, Jesus said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.”
36 They left the crowd, and took him with them in the boat he’d been in. There were other boats with him too.
37 A big windstorm blew up. The waves beat on the boat, and it quickly began to fill. 38 Jesus, however, was asleep on a cushion in the stern. They woke him up.
“Teacher!” they said to him, “We’re going down! Don’t you care?”
39 He got up, scolded the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Shut up!”
The wind died, and there was a flat calm. 40 Then he said to them, “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”
41 Great fear stole over them. “Who is this?” they said to each other. “Even the wind and the sea do what he says!”
The healing of the demoniac
5 So they came over the sea to the land of the Gerasenes. 2 When they got out of the boat, they were suddenly confronted by a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He was emerging from a graveyard, which was where he lived. Nobody had been able to tie him up, not even with a chain; 4 he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he used to tear up the chains and snap the shackles. No one had the strength to tame him. 5 On and on, night and day, he used to shout out in the graveyard and on the hillside, and slash himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus a long way away, he ran and threw himself down in front of him.
7 “Why you and me, Jesus?” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Why you and me, son of the High God? By God, stop torturing me!”— 8 this last, because Jesus was saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of him!”
9 “What’s your name?” Jesus asked him.
“Legion,” he replied. “That’s my name—there are lots of us!” 10 And he implored Jesus not to send them out of the country.
11 It so happened that right there, near the hillside, was a sizable herd of pigs. They were grazing.
12 “Send us to the pigs,” begged the spirits, “so that we can enter them.”
13 So Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd rushed down the steep slope into the sea—about two thousand of them!—and were drowned.
14 The herdsmen fled. They told it in the town, they told it in the countryside, and people came to see what had happened. 15 They came to Jesus; and there they saw the man who had been demon-possessed, who had had the “legion,” seated, clothed and stone-cold sober. They were afraid. 16 The people who had seen it all told them what had happened to the man—and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to leave their district.
18 Jesus was getting back into the boat, when the man asked if he could go with him. 19 Jesus wouldn’t let him.
“Go back home,” he said. “Go to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he had pity on you.”
20 He went off, and began to announce in the Ten Towns what Jesus had done for him. Everyone was astonished.
Jairus’s daughter and the woman with chronic bleeding
21 Jesus crossed over once more in the boat to the other side. There a large crowd gathered around him, and he was by the seashore.
22 One of the synagogue presidents, a man named Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus he fell down at his feet.
23 “My daughter’s going to die! My daughter’s going to die!” he pleaded. “Please come—lay your hands on her—rescue her and let her live!”
24 Jesus went off with him. A large crowd followed, and pressed in on him.
25 A woman who had had internal bleeding for twelve years heard about Jesus. 26 (She’d had a rough time at the hands of one doctor after another; she’d spent all she had on treatment, and had got worse rather than better.) 27 She came up in the crowd behind him and touched his clothes. 28 “If I can just touch his clothes,” she said to herself, “I’ll be rescued.” 29 At once her flow of blood dried up. She knew, in her body, that her illness was cured.
30 Jesus knew at once, inside himself, that power had gone out of him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see this crowd crushing you,” said the disciples, “and you say ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 He looked round to see who had done it. 33 The woman came up; she was afraid and trembling, but she knew what had happened to her. She fell down in front of him and told him the whole truth.
34 “My daughter,” Jesus said to her, “your faith has rescued you. Go in peace. Be healed from your illness.”
The raising of Jairus’s daughter
35 As he said this, some people arrived from the synagogue president’s house.
“Your daughter’s dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
36 Jesus overheard the message. “Don’t be afraid!” he said to the synagogue president. “Just believe!”
37 He didn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James and James’s brother John. 38 They arrived at the synagogue president’s house, and saw a commotion, with a lot of weeping and wailing. 39 Jesus went inside.
“Why are you making such a fuss?” he said. “Why all this weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s asleep.” 40 And they laughed at him.
He put them all out. Then he took the child’s father and mother, and his companions, and they went in to where the child was. 41 He took hold of her hand, and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Time to get up, little girl!” 42 At once the girl got up and walked about. (She was twelve years old.) They were astonished out of their wits. 43 Then he commanded them over and over not to let anyone know about it, and told them to give her something to eat.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.