Fishermen Follow Jesus
Luke 5Now Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and the people were crowding around him to hear the word of God. He saw two fisherman’s boats at the edge of the lake, whose owners had gotten out of them to wash their nets. He got into Simon’s boat and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and taught the crowd from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep, and then y’all let down your* nets for a catch.”
Simon answered him, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But since you said the word, I will let down the nets.” When they did this, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to tear. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so much that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’s knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken, and so were Simon’s partners, James and John, sons of Zebedee.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching humans.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
A Man With Leprosy Asks If Jesus Is Willing
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man was there covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the man, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean.”
Immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, “Tell no one. Go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
But news about him spread even more, and large crowds came together to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.
Friends Bring a Paralyzed Man to Jesus
One day, while he was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem, were sitting nearby. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal. Just then, some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a cot, and they were trying to bring him in to lay before Jesus. When they couldn’t find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up to the roof and lowered him on his cot through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
The scribes and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, answered them, “Why are y’all thinking like this in y’all’s hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’ But so that y’all may know that the Son of Humanity has authority on earth to forgive sins,” —he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take up your cot, and go home.”
Immediately he stood up in front of them, took up what he had been laying on, and went home glorifying God. They were all struck with amazement and glorified God. They were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Jesus Calls Levi and Gets Questioned
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and said to him, “Follow me!”
So, leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. Levi held a massive banquet for Jesus in his house. There was a large crowd of tax collectors and others were reclining at the table with them. But the Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus Questioned About Fasting
They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same, but yours eat and drink.”
He said to them, “Y’all can’t make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them, can y’all? But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, then in those days they will fast.”
He also told them a parable. “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise, they will have torn the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, it will spill out, and the skins will be destroyed. Instead new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they will say, ‘The old is better.’”