Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 The devil said to him, “I will give you all this authority and their glory, because it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I want. 7 So if you will worship before me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
9 Then the devil brought him to Jerusalem, stood him on the highest point of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.[1] 10 For it is written: ‘He will give his angels orders about you, to guard you,’ 11 and, ‘On their hands they will lift you up, so you won’t strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 Jesus answered him, “It has been said: ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
13 When the devil had finished every test, he left him until an opportune time.
14 Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread through all the surrounding region. 15 He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been raised, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send the oppressed away in freedom, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[2]
20 He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
22 Everyone spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words coming from his mouth. They said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
23 He said to them, “You will certainly quote this proverb to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself.’ You’ll say, ‘Do here in your hometown what we heard happened in Capernaum.’” 24 Then he said, “Amen, I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 Truly, I tell you: there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months and a great famine came over all the land. 26 Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a widow woman.[3] 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, except Naaman the Syrian.”
28 When they heard these things, everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage. 29 They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so they could throw him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the middle of them and went on his way.
31 He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath. 32 They were astonished at his teaching, because his word carried authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha! What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God.”[4]
35 Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him.” The demon threw the man down in the middle of them and came out of him without hurting him at all.
36 Amazement came over them all, and they talked among themselves, saying, “What kind of word is this? With authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And word about him spread into every place in the surrounding region.
38 Jesus got up from the synagogue and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her.[5] 39 He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began serving them.
40 As the sun was setting, everyone who had any sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each one of them and healed them. 41 Demons also came out of many, crying out and saying, “You are the Son of God.” But he rebuked them and would not let them speak, because they knew he was the Anointed One.
42 When day came, he left and went to a deserted place. The crowds were looking for him and came to him, trying to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.[6]
Notes
Note 1. The Greek word, πτερύγιον, means a “little wing” or projecting point. It is usually identified with the southeastern corner of the temple complex, where the wall rose above the Kidron valley far below. ↩
Note 2. This line from Isaiah 61 echoes the Jubilee of Leviticus 25 — a year when debts were cancelled, slaves freed, and family land restored. By Jesus’ day the Jubilee was not observed as an actual practice, but it lived on as a symbol of hoped-for release and restoration. ↩
Note 3. Zarephath was a Phoenician town on the Mediterranean coast between Sidon and Tyre — foreign, Gentile ground outside Israel. In the story cited (1 Kings 17), Elijah is sent to a widow there rather than to any in Israel. ↩
Note 4. The Greek is a single exclamation, Ἔα, an expression of surprise or alarm that appears nowhere else in the Gospels. Translators often leave it as a raw sound because it functions less as a word than as a startled cry. ↩
Note 5. Where Matthew and Mark simply say she had a fever, Luke calls it a “great fever” (πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ). Greek medical writers distinguished between “great” and “lesser” fevers as diagnostic categories, and this precise wording is one of the small touches often cited to support the old tradition that Luke was a physician. ↩
Note 6. Many manuscripts read “Galilee” here instead of “Judea,” and several modern translations follow that reading — a natural fit, since Jesus has been working in the north. “Judea” strictly means the southern province around Jerusalem, so Luke may be using it loosely for the whole Jewish land, or the wording may have been adjusted by later copyists. ↩