Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

³⁵ It was already getting late when his disciples came to him and said, “Look: there’s nothing here. It’s getting late. ³⁶ Send them away. They need to go off into the countryside and the villages and buy themselves some food.”

³⁷ “Why don’t you give them something?” Jesus replied.

“Are you suggesting,” they asked, “that we should go and spend two hundred dinars and get food for this lot?”

³⁸ “Well,” said Jesus, “how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”

They found out, and said, “Five, and a couple of fish.”

³⁹ Jesus told them to sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in companies, by hundreds and by fifties. ⁴¹ Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, looked up to heaven, blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to give to the crowd. Then he divided the two fish for them all. ⁴² Everyone ate, and had plenty. ⁴³ They picked up the leftovers, and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces, and of the fish.

⁴⁴ The number of men who had eaten was five thousand.