The crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, and he was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret.[1] 2 He saw two boats pulled up at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats — it was Simon’s — and asked him to push out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
4 When he finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Push out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But at your word I’ll let down the nets.”[2] 6 When they did this, they trapped a huge number of fish. Their nets began to tear. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so full that they started to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord — I’m a sinful man.” 9 He and everyone with him were gripped with awe at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners.
Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you’ll be catching people.”
11 They brought the boats to shore, left everything, and followed him.
• • •
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you’re willing, you can make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean.” And at once the leprosy left him.
14 Jesus ordered him not to tell anyone. “But go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the sacrifice for your cleansing that Moses commanded — as a witness to them.”[3]
15 But the word about him spread all the more. Huge crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 Yet he would slip away to deserted places and pray.
• • •
17 One day while he was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village in Galilee, and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal.
18 Some men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They were trying to bring him in and set him down in front of Jesus. 19 When they couldn’t find a way to get him in because of the crowd, they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the room, right in front of Jesus.[4]
20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21 The scribes and Pharisees began to argue in their minds. “Who is this who speaks blasphemy?” they said. “Who can forgive sins except God alone?”
22 Jesus knew what they were thinking. He answered them, “Why are you arguing in your hearts? 23 Which is easier — to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But so you’ll know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he turned to the paralyzed man — “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”
25 At once the man stood up in front of them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home praising God. 26 Astonishment seized everyone. They praised God and were filled with awe, saying, “We’ve seen incredible things today.”
• • •
27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. He said to him, “Follow me.”[5] 28 Levi left everything, got up, and followed him.
29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house. A large crowd of tax collectors and others were reclining at the table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes grumbled to Jesus’ disciples: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor — sick people do. 32 I haven’t come to call those who already do right, but sinners, to a change of heart.”
33 They said to him, “John’s disciples fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees — but yours go on eating and drinking.”
34 Jesus said to them, “You can’t make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you? 35 But the days will come when the groom is taken away from them — then they’ll fast, in those days.”
36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new cloak and sews it onto an old one. If they do, they’ll tear the new one, and the patch from the new won’t match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will burst the skins — the wine will spill out and the skins will be ruined.[6] 38 No, new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one who drinks old wine wants the new, because they say, ‘The old is good.’”
Notes
Note 1. This is the freshwater lake better known as the Sea of Galilee; in the first century it also went by Lake Tiberias and, in Hebrew, Kinneret. It is a modest body of water — roughly 13 miles long and 8 miles across. ↩
Note 2. The Greek word here is epistates, a term of command and authority — think of a superintendent or overseer — that Luke alone among the Gospel writers uses. A few verses later the word changes to kyrie, “Lord” (5:8). ↩
Note 3. Leviticus 14 lays out an elaborate procedure for a healed leper: the priest first inspects the person, then performs a ceremony with two birds, cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop, followed days later by sacrifices of lambs and an anointing with oil. The priest, not the healer, held the authority to declare someone clean and readmit them to the community. ↩
Note 4. Galilean village roofs were typically flat — timber beams laid across the walls, packed with branches and thick earthen plaster — reachable by an outside stair. Luke’s phrase “through the tiles” matches the tiled roofs of the Greco-Roman world. ↩
Note 5. Tax collectors gathered customs duties and tolls on behalf of Rome, and were widely despised for collaborating with the occupying power and for padding their own pockets in the process. A booth by the lake would have taxed the fishing trade. ↩
Note 6. Wineskins were made from whole animal hides, and a skin that had already held wine had stretched to its limit and grown brittle. Fresh wine, still fermenting, gives off gas and expands — enough to split a rigid old skin, losing both the wine and the container. ↩