2:1  When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, people heard that He had come home.

2:2  And many gathered together, so that they no longer had room, not even near the door; and He spoke the word to them.

2:3  And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men.

2:4  Having the inability to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.

2:5  And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, "Son, I forgive your sins."

2:6  But some of the scribes sat there and reasoning in their hearts,

2:7  "Why does this man speak that way? He blasphemes; who can forgive sins but God alone?"

2:8  Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they reasoned that way within themselves, said to them, "Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?

2:9  Which do you find it easier, to say to the paralytic, 'I forgive Your sins'; or to say, 'Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk'?

2:10  "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--He said to the paralytic,

2:11  "I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home."

2:12  And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they expressed amazement and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this."

2:13  And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people came to Him, and He taught them.

2:14  As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him.

2:15  And it happened that He reclined at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners dined with Jesus and His disciples; for there numbered many of them, and they followed Him.

2:16  When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He ate with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, "Why does He eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

2:17  And hearing this, Jesus said to them, "The healthy do not need a physician, but those who have become sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

2:18  John's disciples and the Pharisees fasted; and they came and said to Him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?"

2:19  And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom remains with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

2:20  "But the days will come when the bridegroom will go away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

2:21  "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.

2:22  "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine becomes lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins."

2:23  And it happened that He passed through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.

2:24  The Pharisees said to Him, "Look, why do they do what we do not deem lawful on the Sabbath?"

2:25  And He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he found himself in need and he and his companions became hungry;

2:26  how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which we do not deem lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who accompanied him?"

2:27  Jesus said to them, "God made the Sabbath for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

2:28  "So the Son of Man has Lordship even of the Sabbath."