A Man with a Withered Hand

1 ^pAgain he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they ^qwatched Jesus,¹ to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, ^r“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their ^shardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the ^tHerodians against him, ^uhow to destroy him.

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

7 ^vJesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they ^wcrush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ^x“You are the ^ySon of God.” 12 And he strictly ^zordered them not to make him known.

The Twelve Apostles

13 ^aAnd he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have ^bauthority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the ^ctwelve: ^dSimon (to whom he gave the ^ename Peter); 17 ^fJames the son of Zebedee and ^gJohn the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 ^hAndrew, and ⁱPhilip, and ^jBartholomew, and ^kMatthew, and ^lThomas, and ^mJames the son of Alphaeus, and ⁿThaddaeus, and ^oSimon the Zealot,² 19 and ^pJudas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

20 Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ^q“He is out of his mind.”

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

22 ^rAnd the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by ^sBeelzebul,” and ^t“by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in ^uparables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a ^vstrong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever ^wblasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers

31 ^xAnd his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers³ are outside, ^yseeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And ^zlooking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For ^awhoever ^bdoes the will of God, he is my ^cbrother and sister and mother.”

The Parable of the Sower

1 ^dAgain he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd ^egathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he was teaching them many things in ^fparables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the ^gsun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a ^hhundredfold.” 9 And he said, “He who has ⁱears to hear, let him hear.”

The Purpose of the Parables

10 ^jAnd when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ^k“To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that

13 ^mAnd he said to them, ⁿ“Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or ^opersecution arises on account of the word, immediately they ^pfall away.⁴ 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the ^qcares of the world and the ^rdeceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and ^sbear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

A Lamp Under a Basket

21 ^tAnd he said to them, ^u“Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For ^vnothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: ^wwith the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. 25 For ^xto the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

The Parable of the Seed Growing

26 And he said, ^y“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he ^zputs in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

30 ^aAnd he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, ^bso that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

33 ^cWith many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. 34 He did not speak to them without a parable, but ^dprivately to his own disciples he explained everything.

Jesus Calms a Storm

35 ^eOn that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great ^fwindstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, ^gasleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are ^hperishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” ⁱAnd the wind ^jceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? ^kHave you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ^l“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Worship in the Splendor of Holiness