¹ On another occasion Jesus went in to a synagogue, where there was a man whose hand was withered.

² And they watched Jesus closely, to see if he would cure the man on the Sabbath, so that they might have a charge to bring against him.

³ “Stand out in the middle,”Jesus said to the man with the withered hand;

⁴ and to the people he said: “Is it allowable to do good at the Sabbath — or harm? To save a life, or destroy it?”

⁵ As they remained silent, Jesus looked round at them in anger, grieving at the hardness of their hearts, and said to the man: “Stretch out your hand.”The man stretched it out; and his hand had become sound.

⁶ Immediately on leaving the synagogue, the Pharisees and the Herodians united in laying a plot against Jesus, to put him to death.

⁷ Then Jesus went away with his disciples to the Sea, followed by a great number of people from Galilee.

⁸ A great number, hearing of all that he was doing, came to him from Judea, from Jerusalem, from Edom, from beyond the Jordan, and from the country round Tyre and Sidon.

⁹ So Jesus told his disciples to keep a small boat close by, so that the crowd would not crush him.

¹⁰ For he had cured many of them, and so people kept crowding around him, so all who were sick might touch him.

¹¹ The foul spirits, too, whenever they caught sight of him, flung themselves down before him, and screamed out: “You are the Son of God”!

¹² But he repeatedly warned them not to make him known.

¹³ Jesus made his way up the hill, and called those whom he wished; and they went to him.

¹⁴ He appointed twelve — whom he also named ‘apostles’ — so that they might be with him, and that he might send them out as his messengers, to preach,

¹⁵ and with power to drive out demons.

¹⁶ So he appointed the Twelve — Peter (which was the name that Jesus gave to Simon),

¹⁷ James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John (to whom he gave the name of Boanerges, which means the Thunderers),

¹⁸ Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot,

¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed him.

²⁰ Jesus went into a house; and again a crowd collected, so that they were not even able to eat their food.

²¹ When his relations heard of it, they went to take charge of him, for they said that he was out of his mind.

²² The teachers of the law, who had come down from Jerusalem, said: “He has Beelzebul in him! He he drives the demons out by the help of their chief.”

²³ So Jesus called them to him, and answered them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan?

²⁴ When a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot last;

²⁵ and when a household is divided against itself, it will not be able to last.

²⁶ So, if Satan is in revolt against himself and is divided, he cannot last — his end has come!

²⁷ “No man who has got into a strong man’s house can carry off his goods, without first securing him; and not until then will he plunder his house.

²⁸ I tell you that people will be forgiven everything — their sins, and all the slanders that they utter;

²⁹ but whoever slanders the Holy Spirit remains unforgiven to the end; he has to answer for an enduring sin.”

³⁰ This was said in reply to the charge that he had a foul spirit in him.

³¹ His mother and his brothers came, and stood outside, and sent to ask him to come to them.

³² There was a crowd sitting round Jesus, and some of them said to him: “Look, your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.”

³³ “Who is my mother? And my brothers?”was his reply.

³⁴ Then he looked around on the people sitting in a circle round him, and said: “Here are my mother and my brothers!

³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”