15 However, athe report went around concerning Him all the more; and bgreat multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.
16aSo He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and bprayed.
Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralytic
17 Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present1 to heal them.
18aThen behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him.
19 And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst abefore Jesus.
20 When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
21aAnd the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? bWho can forgive sins but God alone?”
22 But when Jesus aperceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts?
23Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?
24But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, a“I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
25 Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, aglorifying God.
26 And they were all amazed, and they aglorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!”
Matthew the Tax Collector
27aAfter these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, b“Follow Me.”
29aThen Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And bthere were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them.
301And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, a“Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
32aI have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus Is Questioned About Fasting
33 Then they said to Him, a“Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?”
34 And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the abridegroom is with them?
35But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”
36aThen He spoke a parable to them: “No one1puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.
37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.
38But new wine must be put into new wineskins,1and both are preserved.
39And no one, having drunk old wine,1immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is2better.’ ”
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