New Testament in a Year

A man who had a disease of the skin comes to meet Jesus

8 Jesus came down from the hill and a large crowd followed him. ² A man with a bad disease of the skin came to meet him. He went down on his knees in front of Jesus and he said, ‘Sir, if you want, you can make me well again. Please do it.’

³ Jesus put out his hand towards him and he touched him. ‘I do want to help you. Be clean again,’ Jesus said. Immediately, the man's skin was clean again. ⁴ Jesus said to the man, ‘Listen. You must not tell anyone about this. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest. Take a gift to him for God. Moses taught the people what gift to take to God after this kind of disease. This will show everyone that you are now well again.’

An officer in the army believes that Jesus can help him

⁵ Jesus went into Capernaum. An officer in the Roman army came to meet him. He asked Jesus to help him.^{[a] 6} ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘My servant is lying in bed at home. He cannot move his legs and he has a lot of pain.’

⁷ Jesus said to the officer, ‘I will go with you to your house and I will make your servant well again.’

⁸ But the officer answered, ‘Sir, I am not good enough for you to come into my house. Instead, just say that my servant will get better. I know that he will then be well again. ⁹ In my work, someone has authority over me. I also have authority over other soldiers. I say to one soldier, “Go!” and he goes. I say to another one, “Come!” and he comes. I say to my servant, “Do this!” and he does it.’

¹⁰ Jesus heard what the officer said. He was very surprised. He spoke to the crowd that was following him. ‘I tell you this: I have never found anyone like this man in all of Israel. Nobody else believes in me as well as he does. ¹¹ I tell you, many people will come from all over the world to take their place in the kingdom of heaven. There they will sit down to eat with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ¹² But other people who think that God's kingdom belongs to them will not be there. God's angels will throw them into the dark places that are far away from God. There those people will weep very much. They will bite their teeth together.’^[b]

¹³ Then Jesus said to the officer, ‘Go home. You believed that I would make your servant well again. So I will do it for you.’ At that moment, the servant did become well again.

Jesus makes many people well

¹⁴ Jesus went into Peter's house. There, he saw the mother of Peter's wife. She was lying in bed. She was ill and her body was very hot. ¹⁵ Jesus touched her hand and immediately she was well again. So she got up and she prepared food for Jesus.

¹⁶ That evening, people brought to Jesus many people who were ill. Many of them had bad spirits in them. Jesus spoke a word so that the bad spirits left them. He made everybody who was ill well again. ¹⁷ Jesus did this so that the words of the prophet Isaiah would become true: