Chronological
Temptation in the wilderness
4 Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the spirit to be tested by the devil. 2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and at the end of it was famished. 3 Then the tempter approached him.
“If you really are God’s son,” he said, “tell these stones to become bread!”
4 “The Bible says,” replied Jesus, “that it takes more than bread to keep you alive. You actually live on every word that comes out of God’s mouth.”
5 Then the devil took him off to the holy city, and stood him on a pinnacle of the Temple.
6 “If you really are God’s son,” he said, “throw yourself down. The Bible does say, after all, that ‘God will give his angels a command about you’; and ‘they will carry you in their hands, so that you won’t hurt your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 “But the Bible also says,” replied Jesus, “that you mustn’t put the Lord your God to the test!”
8 Then the devil took him off again, this time to a very high mountain. There he showed him all the magnificent kingdoms of the world.
9 “I’ll give the whole lot to you,” he said, “if you will fall down and worship me.”
10 “Get out of it, satan!” replied Jesus. “The Bible says, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone!’ ”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and looked after him.
Announcing the kingdom
12 When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he went off to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth, and went to live at Capernaum, a small town by the sea in the region of Zebulon and Naphtali. 14 This happened so that the word spoken through Isaiah the prophet might come true:
15 The land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali,
the road by the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee, land of the nations:
16 the people who sat in the dark saw a great light;
light dawned on those who sat in the shadowy land of death.
17 From that time on Jesus began to make his proclamation.
“Repent!” he would say. “The kingdom of heaven is arriving!”
Jesus calls the disciples
18 As Jesus was walking beside the sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon (also called Peter) and Andrew his brother. They were fishermen, and were casting nets into the sea.
19 “Follow me!” said Jesus. “I’ll make you fish for people!”
20 Straight away they abandoned their nets and followed him.
21 He went on further, and saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother. They were in the boat, mending their nets, with Zebedee their father. He called them. 22 At once they left the boat, and their father, and followed him.
23 He went on through the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and every illness among the people.
24 Word about him went out around the whole of Syria. They brought to him all the people tormented with various kinds of diseases and ailments, demon-possessed people, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Ten Towns, Jerusalem, Judaea and beyond the Jordan.
Temptation in the wilderness
4 Jesus returned from the Jordan, filled with the spirit. The spirit took him off into the wilderness 2 for forty days, to be tested by the devil. He ate nothing during that time, and at the end of it he was hungry.
3 “If you are God’s son,” said the devil, “tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
4 “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘It isn’t only bread that keeps you alive.’ ”
5 The devil then took him up and showed him, in an instant, all the kingdoms of the world.
6 “I will give you authority over all of this,” said the devil, “and all the prestige that goes with it. It’s been given to me, you see, and I give it to anyone I like. 7 So it can all be yours . . . if you will just worship me.”
8 “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘The Lord your God is the one you must worship; he is the only one you must serve.’ ”
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and stood him on a pinnacle of the Temple.
“If you are God’s son,” he said, “throw yourself down from here; 10 it’s written, after all, that ‘He will give his angels a command about you, to look after you’; 11 and ‘They will carry you in their hands, so that you won’t hit your foot against a stone.’ ”
12 “It has been said,” replied Jesus, “ ‘You mustn’t put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
13 When the devil had finished each temptation, he left him until another opportunity.
Opposition to Jesus in Nazareth
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit. His reputation spread throughout the whole district. 15 He taught in their synagogues to universal acclaim.
16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. On the sabbath, as was his regular practice, he went into the synagogue and stood up to read. 17 They gave him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 The spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to tell the poor the good news.
He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners
and sight to the blind,
to set the wounded victims free,
19 to announce the year of God’s special favor.
20 He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 “Today,” he began, “this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.”
22 Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth—words of sheer grace.
“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they said.
23 “I know what you’re going to say,” Jesus said. “You’re going to tell me the old riddle: ‘Heal yourself, doctor!’ ‘We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do things like that here, in your own country!’
24 “Let me tell you the truth,” he went on. “Prophets never get accepted in their own country. 25 This is the solemn truth: there were plenty of widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine over all the land. 26 Elijah was sent to none of them, only to a widow in the Sidonian town of Zarephath.
27 “And there were plenty of people with virulent skin diseases in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was healed—only Naaman, the Syrian.”
28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage. 29 They got up and threw him out of town. They took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built, meaning to fling him off. 30 But he slipped through the middle of them and went away.
Jesus’ authoritative healings
31 Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He used to teach them every sabbath. 32 They were astonished at his teaching, because his message was powerful and authoritative.
33 There was a man in the synagogue who had the spirit of an unclean demon.
34 “Hey, you!” he yelled out at the top of his voice. “What’s going on with you and me, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—you’re God’s Holy One!”
35 “Shut up!” Jesus rebuked him. “Come out of him!”
The demon threw the man down right there in front of them, and came out without harming him. 36 Fear came over them all. “What’s all this?” they started to say to one another. “He’s got power! He’s got authority! He tells the unclean spirits what to do, and they come out!” 37 Word about him went out to the whole surrounding region.
38 He left the synagogue and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick with a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 He stood in front of her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. And straight away she got up and waited on them.
40 When the sun went down, everyone who had sick people—all kinds of sicknesses—brought them to him. He laid his hands on each one in turn, and healed them. 41 Demons came out of many people, shouting out, “You are the son of God!” He sternly forbade them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.
42 When day dawned he left the town and went off to a deserted place. The crowds hunted for him, and when they caught up with him they begged him not to leave them.
43 “I must tell the good news of God’s kingdom to the other towns,” he said. “That’s what I was sent for.” 44 And he was announcing the message to the synagogues of Judaea.
The miraculous catch of fish
5 One day, as the crowds were pressing close to him to hear the word of God, Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. 2 He saw two boats moored by the land; the fishermen had gone ashore and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats—it was Simon’s—and asked him to put out a little way from the land. Then he sat down in the boat and began to teach the crowd.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deeper part, and let down your nets for a catch.”
5 “Master,” replied Simon, “we were working hard all night and caught nothing at all. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.”
6 When they did so, they caught such a huge number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. So they came, and filled both the boats, and they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees.
“Leave me alone, Lord!” he said. “I’m a sinner!” 9 He and all his companions were gripped with amazement at the catch of fish they had taken. 10 This included James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Jesus to Simon. “From now on you’ll be catching people.”
11 They brought the boats in to land. Then they abandoned everything and followed him.
The healing of the man with a virulent skin disease
12 It so happened that, as Jesus was in one particular town, there was a man whose skin was covered all over with a virulent disease. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face.
“Lord,” he begged, “if you want, you can make me clean.”
13 Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.
“I do want to,” he said. “Be clean.”
And the skin disease disappeared immediately.
14 Jesus instructed the man not to tell anyone. “Go and show yourself to the priest,” he said, “and make the offering commanded by Moses in connection with your healing, as evidence for them.”
15 The news about Jesus, though, spread all round, and large crowds came to hear and to be healed from their diseases. 16 He used to slip away to remote places and pray.
The healing of the paralytic lowered through the roof
17 One day, as Jesus was teaching, there were Pharisees and legal experts sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee, and from Judaea and Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was with Jesus, enabling him to heal. 18 Just then some men appeared, carrying a paralyzed man on a mattress; they were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. 19 The crowd made it impossible for them to get through, so they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles, mattress and all, so that he landed right in the middle, in front of Jesus.
20 Jesus saw what trust they had.
“My friend,” he said, “your sins are forgiven.”
21 The legal experts and Pharisees began to argue. “Who does he think he is?” they said. “He’s blaspheming! Nobody can forgive sins—only God can do that!”
22 Jesus knew their line of thought.
“Why are you complaining in your hearts?” he replied. 23 “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But if you want to be convinced that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins—” (here he turned to the paralyzed man) “—I say to you, get up, pick up your mattress, and go home.”
25 At once he got up in front of them all, picked up what he’d been lying on, and went off home, praising God.
26 A sense of awe came over everyone. They praised God, and were filled with fear. “We’ve seen extraordinary things today,” they said.
Questions about table-company and fasting
27 After this Jesus went out and saw a tax-collector called Levi, sitting at the tax-office. “Follow me,” he said. 28 And he left everything, got up, and followed him.
29 Levi made a great feast for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax-collectors and others were there reclining at table. 30 The Pharisees and the legal experts began to grumble to Jesus’ disciples.
“Why do you lot eat and drink,” they asked, “with tax-collectors and sinners?”
31 “Healthy people don’t need a doctor,” replied Jesus. “It’s sick people who do! 32 I haven’t come to call the righteous; I’m calling sinners to repentance.”
33 “John’s disciples often fast, and say prayers,” they said to him, “and so do the Pharisees’ followers—but your disciples eat and drink.”
34 “Can you make the wedding guests fast,” replied Jesus, “while the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. That’s when they will fast.”
36 He added this parable. “Nobody tears a piece of cloth from a new coat to make a patch on an old one. If they do, they tear the new, and the patch from it won’t fit the old one anyway. 37 And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will burst the skins: it will go to waste, and the skins will be ruined too. 38 You have to put new wine in new skins. 39 And nobody who drinks old wine wants new. ‘I prefer the old,’ they say.”
15 John gave evidence about him, loud and clear.
“This is the one,” he said, “that I was speaking about when I told you, ‘The one who comes after me ranks ahead of me, because he was before me.’ ”
16 Yes; it’s out of his fullness that we have all received, grace indeed on top of grace. 17 The law, you see, was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah. 18 Nobody has ever seen God. The only-begotten God, who is intimately close to the father—he has brought him to light.
The evidence of John
19 This is the evidence John gave, when the Judaeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 He was quite open about it; he didn’t try to deny it. He said, quite openly, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 “What then?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No.”
22 “Well, then, who are you?” they said. “We’ve got to take some kind of answer back to the people who sent us. Who do you claim to be?”
23 “I’m a voice calling in the desert,” he said, “ ‘Straighten out the road for the master!’ ”—just as the prophet Isaiah said.
24 The people who had been sent were from the Pharisees. 25 They continued to question him.
“So why are you baptizing,” they asked, “if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
26 “I’m baptizing with water,” John replied. “But there is someone standing among you that you don’t know, 27 someone who is to come after me. I’m not good enough to undo his sandal-strap.”
28 This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The lamb and the spirit
29 The next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him.
“Look!” he said. “There’s God’s lamb! He’s the one who takes away the world’s sin! 30 He’s the one I was speaking about when I said, ‘There’s a man coming after me who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me!’ 31 I didn’t know who it would be, but this was the reason I came to baptize with water—so that he could be revealed to Israel.”
32 So John gave this evidence: “I saw the spirit coming down like a dove out of heaven and remaining on him. 33 I didn’t know who it would be; but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘When you see the spirit coming down and resting on someone, that’s the person who will baptize with the holy spirit.’ 34 Well, that’s what I saw, and I’ve given you my evidence: he is the son of God.”
The first disciples
35 The following day John was again standing there, with two of his disciples. 36 He saw Jesus walking by, and said, “Look! There goes God’s lamb!”
37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
38 Jesus turned and saw them following him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Rabbi,” they said (the word means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
39 “Come and see,” he replied.
So they came, and saw where he was staying, and stayed with him that day. It was late in the afternoon.
40 One of the two who heard what John said and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 The first person he found was his own brother Simon.
“We’ve found the Messiah!” he said (that means “the anointed one,” like our word “Christ”). 42 He brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him.
“So,” he said, “you’re Simon, John’s son, are you? We’d better call you Cephas!” (That means “the Rock,” like our word “Peter.”)
Philip and Nathanael
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, where he found Philip.
“Follow me,” he said to him.
44 Philip came from Bethsaida, the town where Andrew and Peter hailed from. 45 Philip found Nathanael.
“We’ve found him!” he said. “The one Moses wrote about in the law! And the prophets, too! We’ve found him! It’s Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth!”
46 “Really?” replied Nathanael. “Are you telling me that something good can come out of Nazareth?”
“Come and see,” replied Philip.
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him.
“Here he comes,” he said. “Look at him! He’s a real Israelite. Genuine through and through.”
48 “How did you get to know me?” asked Nathanael.
“Oh,” replied Jesus, “I saw you under the fig tree, before Philip spoke to you.”
49 “Rabbi,” replied Nathanael, “you’re the son of God! You’re the king of Israel!”
50 “Wait a minute,” said Jesus. “Are you telling me that you believe just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You’ll see a lot more than that!
51 “In fact,” he went on, “I’m telling you the solemn truth. You’ll see heaven opened, and God’s angels going up and down upon the son of man.”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.