In those days, once again a large crowd had gathered and had nothing to eat. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, 2 “I feel for this crowd — they’ve been with me three days now and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they’ll collapse on the way. Some of them have come a long distance.”
4 His disciples answered, “Where in this desert could anyone get enough bread to feed all these people?”
5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
“Seven,” they said.
6 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, gave thanks, broke them, and kept giving them to his disciples to set out. And they set them before the crowd. 7 They also had a few small fish. He blessed them and said to set those out too. 8 They ate and were satisfied, and they picked up seven large baskets of broken pieces left over. 9 About four thousand people were there. Then he sent them away.
10 Right away he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.[1]
• • •
11 The Pharisees came out and began to argue with him, demanding a sign from heaven — testing him. 12 He sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation demand a sign? Amen, I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 13 He left them, got back into the boat, and crossed to the other side.
• • •
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring bread. They had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Jesus warned them, “Watch out — be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”[2]
16 They began talking among themselves about the fact that they had no bread.
17 Jesus knew what they were saying and said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts this hard? 18 You have eyes — can you not see? You have ears — can you not hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they said.[3]
20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?”
“Seven,” they said.
21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
• • •
22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. He spit on the man’s eyes, laid his hands on him, and asked, “Do you see anything?”
24 The man looked up and said, “I see people — they look like trees, walking around.”
25 Then Jesus laid his hands on the man’s eyes again. The man stared hard, and his sight was restored. He could see everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”
• • •
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?”[4]
28 They told him, “John the Baptist. Others say Elijah. And others say one of the prophets.”[5]
29 He asked them, “But you — who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Anointed One.”
30 And he warned them sharply not to tell anyone about him.
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said this plainly.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But Jesus turned, looked at his disciples, and rebuked Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You’re not thinking God’s thoughts — you’re thinking human thoughts.”
34 Then he called the crowd to join his disciples and said to them, “If anyone wants to follow me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. 35 Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for my sake and for the good news will save it.[6] 36 What good does it do a person to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 What can a person give in exchange for their life? 38 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this unfaithful and sinful generation — the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Notes
Note 1. Dalmanutha appears nowhere else in ancient writing, and its location has long been a puzzle; scholars place it on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, near Magdala. A 2013 survey of the Ginosar valley turned up first-century remains — pottery, weights, stone anchors — that some connect with the site, though no inscription has confirmed the name. ↩
Note 2. In Jewish thought yeast, or leaven, was a common image for corruption — something small and hidden that quietly works its way through the whole batch. The Pharisees were a religious party and Herod’s house a ruling family. ↩
Note 3. The Greek uses two different words for the leftovers gathered at the two feedings. At the five thousand it was a kophinos, a small hand-basket a traveler might carry; here at the four thousand it was a spyris, a large hamper — the same kind of basket, Acts says, used to lower Paul over a city wall. Our translation marks the shift by calling these “large baskets.” ↩
Note 4. Caesarea Philippi, modern Banias, was a thoroughly pagan city built around a cave sacred to the god Pan, where a spring flowed. Herod the Great raised a marble temple to Augustus there, and his son Philip made it his capital and a seat of emperor-worship. ↩
Note 5. The book of Malachi promised that Elijah would return before the great day of the Lord to set things right, and that hope was very much alive in the first century. ↩
Note 6. One Greek word, psychē, means life, soul, and self all at once — the breath in you and the you that breathes. The saying turns on that: whoever tries to save his psychē will lose it. English has to choose a word, so we say “life” here, but “soul” would translate the same word. Nothing in the Greek separates the two. ↩