A Man with a Withered Hand

¹cAgain dhe entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. ²And ethey watched Jesus,1 to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴And he said to them, f“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵And he glooked around at them with anger, grieved at htheir hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” iHe stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶jThe Pharisees went out and immediately jheld counsel with kthe Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

⁷lJesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and ma great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸and Jerusalem and nIdumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around oTyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹And he told his disciples to phave a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they qcrush him, ¹⁰for rhe had healed many, so that all who had sdiseases pressed around him tto touch him. ¹¹uAnd whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they vfell down before him and cried out, “You are wthe Son of God.” ¹²And xhe strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The Twelve Apostles

¹³yAnd he went up on the mountain and called to him those zwhom he desired, and they came to him. ¹⁴yAnd he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ¹⁵yand have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶He appointed the twelve: aSimon (to whom bhe gave the name Peter); ¹⁷cJames the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and dMatthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot,2 ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

²⁰Then he went ehome, and the crowd gathered again, fso that they could not even eat. ²¹gAnd when hhis family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He iis out of his mind.”

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

²²And jthe scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, k“He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” ²³lAnd he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. ²⁷But mno one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. nThen indeed he may plunder his house.

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

Jesus' Mother and Brothers

³¹qAnd his mother and his rbrothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. ³²And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers3 are outside, seeking you.” ³³And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And slooking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵tFor whoever udoes the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”