New Testament in a Year

7 When Jesus had finished his sermon he went back into the city of Capernaum.

² Just at that time the highly prized slave of a Roman^[a] army captain was sick and near death. ³ When the captain heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his slave. ⁴ So they began pleading earnestly with Jesus to come with them and help the man. They told him what a wonderful person the captain was.

“If anyone deserves your help, it is he,” they said, ⁵ “for he loves the Jews and even paid personally to build us a synagogue!”

^6-8 Jesus went with them; but just before arriving at the house, the captain sent some friends to say, “Sir, don’t inconvenience yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of any such honor or even to come and meet you. Just speak a word from where you are, and my servant boy will be healed! I know, because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my men. I only need to say ‘Go!’ and they go; or ‘Come!’ and they come; and to my slave, ‘Do this or that,’ and he does it. So just say, ‘Be healed!’ and my servant will be well again!”

⁹ Jesus was amazed. Turning to the crowd he said, “Never among all the Jews in Israel have I met a man with faith like this.”

¹⁰ And when the captain’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.

¹¹ Not long afterwards Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, with the usual great crowd at his heels. ¹² A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The boy who had died was the only son of his widowed mother, and many mourners from the village were with her.

¹³ When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with sympathy. “Don’t cry!” he said. ¹⁴ Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Laddie,” he said, “come back to life again.”

¹⁵ Then the boy sat up and began to talk to those around him! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

¹⁶ A great fear swept the crowd, and they exclaimed with praises to God, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and, “We have seen the hand of God at work today.”

¹⁷ The report of what he did that day raced from end to end of Judea and even out across the borders.

¹⁸ The disciples of John the Baptist soon heard of all that Jesus was doing. When they told John about it, ¹⁹ he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you really the Messiah?^[b] Or shall we keep on looking for him?”

^20-22 The two disciples found Jesus while he was curing many sick people of their various diseases—healing the lame and the blind and casting out evil spirits. When they asked him John’s question, this was his reply: “Go back to John and tell him all you have seen and heard here today: how those who were blind can see. The lame are walking without a limp. The lepers are completely healed. The deaf can hear again. The dead come back to life. And the poor are hearing the Good News. ²³ And tell him, ‘Blessed is the one who does not lose his faith in me.’”^[c]

²⁴ After they left, Jesus talked to the crowd about John. “Who is this man you went out into the Judean wilderness to see?” he asked. “Did you find him weak as grass, moved by every breath of wind? ²⁵ Did you find him dressed in expensive clothes? No! Men who live in luxury are found in palaces, not out in the wilderness. ²⁶ But did you find a prophet? Yes! And more than a prophet. ²⁷ He is the one to whom the Scriptures refer when they say, ‘Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, to prepare the way before you.’ ²⁸ In all humanity there is no one greater than John. And yet the least citizen of the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”

²⁹ And all who heard John preach—even the most wicked of them^[d]—agreed that God’s requirements were right, and they were baptized by him. ³⁰ All, that is, except the Pharisees and teachers of Moses’ law. They rejected God’s plan for them and refused John’s baptism.