Mark 2:11-28 ▼

11 "To you I say, 'Rise, take up your mat and go home.'"

12 The man rose, and immediately under the eyes of all took up his mat and went out, so that they were all filled with astonishment, gave the glory to God, and said, "We never saw anything like this."

13 Again He went out to the shore of the Lake, and the whole multitude kept coming to Him, and He taught them.

14 And as He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the Toll Office, and said to him, "Follow me." So he rose and followed Him.

15 When He was sitting at table in Levi's house, a large number of tax-gatherers and notorious sinners were at table with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many such who habitually followed Him.

16 But when the Scribes of the Pharisee sect saw Him eating with the sinners and the tax-gatherers, they said to His disciples, "He is eating and drinking with the tax-gatherers and sinners!"

17 Jesus heard the words, and He said, "It is not the healthy who require a doctor, but the sick: I did not come to appeal to the righteous, but to sinners."

18 (Now John's disciples and those of the Pharisees were keeping a fast.)

19 "Can a wedding party fast while the bridegroom is among them?" replied Jesus. "So long as they have the bridegroom with them, fasting is impossible.

20 But a time will come when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast.

21 No one mends an old garment with a piece of unshrunk cloth. Otherwise, the patch put on would tear away from it--the new from the old--and a worse hole would be made.

22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the wine would burst the skins, and both wine and skins would be lost. New wine needs fresh skins!"

23 One Sabbath He was walking through the wheatfields when His disciples began to pluck the ears of wheat as they went.

24 So the Pharisees said to Him, "Look! why are they doing what on the Sabbath is unlawful?"

25 "Have you never read," Jesus replied, "what David did when the necessity arose and he and his men were hungry:

26 how he entered the house of God in the High-priesthood of Abiathar, and ate the Presented Loaves--which none but the priests are allowed to eat--and gave some to his men also?"

27 And Jesus said to them: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath;

28 so that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."