Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Jesus cures leprosy, and heals many other people

8 ^1-3 Large crowds followed him when he came down from the hillside. There was a leper who came and knelt in front of him. “Sir,” he said, “if you want to, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand and placed it on the leper saying, “Of course I want to. Be clean!” And at once he was clear of the leprosy.

⁴ “Mind you say nothing to anybody,” Jesus told him. “Go straight off and show yourself to the priest and make the offering for your recovery that Moses prescribed, as evidence to the authorities.”

^5-6 Then as he was coming into Capernaum a centurion approached. “Sir,” he implored him, “my servant is in bed at home paralysed and in dreadful pain.”

⁷ “I will come and heal him,” said Jesus to him.

^8-9 “Sir,” replied the centurion, “I’m not important enough for you to come under my roof. Just give the order, please, and my servant will recover. I’m a man under authority myself, and I have soldiers under me. I can say to one man ‘Go’ and I know he’ll go, or I can say ‘Come here’ to another and I know he’ll come—or I can say to my slave ‘Do this’ and he’ll always do it.”

^10-12 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished. “Believe me,” he said to those who were following him, “I have never found faith like this, even in Israel! I tell you that many people will come from east and west and sit at my table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. But those who should have belonged to the kingdom will be banished to the darkness outside, where there will be tears and bitter regret.”

¹³ Then he said to the centurion, “Go home now, and everything will happen as you have believed it will.” And his servant was healed at that actual moment.