Read the Gospels in 40 Days

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:

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.”

Teachings on the sabbath

6 One sabbath, Jesus was walking through some cornfields. His disciples were plucking and eating ears of grain, rubbing them with their hands.

² “Why,” asked some Pharisees, “are you doing something that isn’t permitted on the sabbath?”

³ “Haven’t you read what David did?” replied Jesus. “When he and his men were hungry, ⁴ he went into God’s house and took the ‘bread of the presence,’ which no one but the priests was allowed to eat. He ate some, and gave it to his companions.

⁵ “The son of man,” he declared, “is Lord of the sabbath.”

⁶ On another sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand was withered. ⁷ The scribes and Pharisees were watching him, to see if he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they could find an accusation against him.

⁸ He knew what they were thinking.

“Get up,” he said to the man with the withered hand, “and come out here in the middle.” He got up and came out.

⁹ “Let me ask you something,” Jesus said to them. “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath or to do evil? To save life or to destroy it?”

¹⁰ He looked round at all of them.

“Stretch out your hand,” he said to the man.

He did so; and his hand was restored. ¹¹ But they were filled with rage, and discussed with each other what they might do to Jesus.

The Beatitudes

¹² It happened around that time that Jesus went up into the mountain to pray, and he spent all night in prayer to God. ¹³ When day came, he called his disciples, and chose twelve of them, calling them “apostles”: ¹⁴ Simon, whom he called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, Bartholomew, ¹⁵ Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called “the hothead,” ¹⁶ Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who turned traitor.

¹⁷ He went down with them, and took up a position on a level plain where there was a large crowd of his followers, with a huge company of people from all Judaea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ They came to hear him, and to be cured from their diseases. Those who were troubled by unclean spirits were healed, ¹⁹ and the whole crowd tried to touch him, because power was going out from him and healing everybody.

²⁰ He lifted up his eyes and looked at his disciples, and said:

Loving your enemies

²⁷ “But this is my word,” Jesus continued, “for those of you who are listening: love your enemies! Do good to people who hate you! ²⁸ Bless people who curse you! Pray for people who treat you badly!

²⁹ “If someone hits you on the cheek—offer him the other one! If someone takes away your coat—don’t stop him taking your shirt! ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and don’t ask for things back when people have taken them.

³¹ “Whatever you want people to do to you, do that to them. ³² If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Think about it: even sinners love people who love them. ³³ Or again, if you do good only to people who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Sinners do that too. ³⁴ If you lend only to people you expect to get things back from, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get paid back. ³⁵ No: love your enemies, do good and lend without expecting any return. Your reward will be great! You will be children of the Highest! He is generous, you see, to the stingy and wicked. ³⁶ You must be merciful, just as your father is merciful.

³⁷ “Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you’ll be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you: a good helping, squashed down, shaken in, and overflowing—that’s what will land in your lap. Yes: the ration you give to others is the ration you’ll get back for yourself.”

Judging others and true obedience

³⁹ Jesus told them this riddle. “What do you get when one blind man guides another? Both of them falling in a ditch! ⁴⁰ Students can’t do better than the teacher; when the course is done, they’ll all be just like the teacher.

⁴¹ “Why look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye, when you haven’t noticed the plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Dear brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t see the plank in your own? You’re a fraud! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁴³ “You see, no good tree bears bad fruit; nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. ⁴⁴ Every tree is known by its fruit. You don’t pick figs from thorns; nor do you get grapes from a briar-bush. ⁴⁵ The good person brings good things out of the good treasure of the heart; the evil person brings evil things out of evil. What comes out of the mouth is what’s overflowing in the heart.

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I say? ⁴⁷ I’ll show you what people are like when they come to me, and hear my words, and do them. ⁴⁸ They are like a wise man building a house: he dug, he went down deep, and he laid a foundation on rock. When a flood came, the river burst its banks all over the house, but it couldn’t shake it because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But when people hear but don’t obey—that’s like a man who built a house on the ground, without a foundation. When the river burst over it, it fell down at once. The ruin of that house was devastating.”