Luke 4-5

Luke 4

¹Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

²where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.

³The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

⁵Then the devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

⁶“I will give You authority over all these kingdoms and all their glory,” he said. “For it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish.

⁷So if You worship me, it will all be Yours.”

⁸But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”

⁹Then the devil led Him to Jerusalem and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple. “If You are the Son of God,” he said, “throw Yourself down from here.

¹⁰For it is written: ‘He will command His angels concerning You to guard You carefully;

¹¹and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”

¹²But Jesus answered, “It also says, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

¹³When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.

¹⁴Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news about Him spread throughout the surrounding region.

¹⁵He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by everyone.

¹⁶Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read,

¹⁷the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰Then He rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him,

²¹and He began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²²All spoke well of Him and marveled at the gracious words that came from His lips. “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in Your hometown what we have heard that You did in Capernaum.’”

²⁴Then He added, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

²⁵But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.

²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon.

²⁷And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. Yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸On hearing this, all the people in the synagogue were enraged.

²⁹They got up, drove Him out of the town, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him over the cliff.

³⁰But Jesus passed through the crowd and went on His way.

³¹Then He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath He began to teach the people.

³²They were astonished at His teaching, because His message had authority.

³³In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon. He cried out in a loud voice,

³⁴“Ha! What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵But Jesus rebuked the demon. “Be silent!” He said. “Come out of him!” At this, the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without harming him.

³⁶All the people were overcome with amazement and asked one another, “What is this message? With authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!”

³⁷And the news about Jesus spread throughout the surrounding region.

³⁸After Jesus had left the synagogue, He went to the home of Simon, whose mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. So they appealed to Jesus on her behalf,

³⁹and He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And she got up at once and began to serve them.

⁴⁰At sunset, all who were ill with various diseases were brought to Jesus, and laying His hands on each one, He healed them.

⁴¹Demons also came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But He rebuked the demons and would not allow them to speak, because they knew He was the Christ.

⁴²At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place, and the crowds were looking for Him. They came to Him and tried to keep Him from leaving.

⁴³But Jesus told them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, because that is why I was sent.”

⁴⁴And He continued to preach in the synagogues of Judea.

Luke 5

¹On one occasion, while Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret with the crowd pressing in on Him to hear the word of God,

²He saw two boats at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.

³Jesus got into the boat belonging to Simon and asked him to put out a little from shore. And sitting down, He taught the people from the boat.

⁴When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

⁵“Master,” Simon replied, “we have worked hard all night without catching anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to tear.

⁷So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees. “Go away from me, Lord,” he said, “for I am a sinful man.”

⁹For he and his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,

¹⁰and so were his partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to Simon. “From now on you will catch men.”

¹¹And when they had brought their boats ashore, they left everything and followed Him.

¹²While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell facedown and begged Him, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

¹³Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

¹⁴“Do not tell anyone,” Jesus instructed him. “But go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

¹⁵But the news about Jesus spread all the more, and great crowds came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

¹⁶Yet He frequently withdrew to the wilderness to pray.

¹⁷One day Jesus was teaching, and the Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. People had come from Jerusalem and from every village of Galilee and Judea, and the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal the sick.

¹⁸Just then some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They tried to bring him inside to set him before Jesus,

¹⁹but they could not find a way through the crowd. So they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

²⁰When Jesus saw their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

²¹But the scribes and Pharisees began thinking to themselves, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

²²Knowing what they were thinking, Jesus replied, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

²³Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’

²⁴But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins...” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”

²⁵And immediately the man stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

²⁶Everyone was taken with amazement and glorified God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

²⁷After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. “Follow Me,” He told him,

²⁸and Levi got up, left everything, and followed Him.

²⁹Then Levi hosted a great banquet for Jesus at his house. A large crowd of tax collectors was there, along with others who were eating with them.

³⁰But the Pharisees and their scribes complained to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

³²I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

³³Then they said to Him, “John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees frequently fast and pray, but Yours keep on eating and drinking.”

³⁴Jesus replied, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them?

³⁵But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

³⁶He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

³⁷And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined.

³⁸Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.

³⁹And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”