Luke 4:23-30

²³So Jesus said, “I know what you are going to say next. You are going to use the picture talk that some people use. They say, ‘Doctor, make yourself better, to show us you know how to do it.’ And you mob will say to me, ‘Show us you know how to do powerful things. Do them here, in you own home town, like you did in Capernaum.’

²⁴Listen, this is true. If God picks a man to tell his messages, the people of his own home town don’t want him. They reckon they know him, so they will not listen to him.

²⁵Think about these 2 stories in God’s book. Remember the story about God’s man called Elijah. Our people, the Israel nation, did bad things at that time, so God punished them. He blocked the rain. No rain fell for more than 3 years, and no food plants grew in the gardens, so everybody was short of food, and they were very hungry. But God looked after Elijah, and sent him to another place called Zarephath, in Sidon country. God got a widow there to look after Elijah, and God gave that widow enough food for herself, and her son, and Elijah too. Listen, there were a lot of widows in Israel at that time, but God did not save a widow that belonged to Israel, he saved a widow that belonged to Sidon country, not one of us Israel people.

²⁷And remember the story about God’s man called Elisha, that lived a long time ago. At that time there was a man called Naaman, that belonged to Syria country. He had a bad skin sickness. But Elisha used God’s power to make him better. Listen, there were a lot of people in Israel that had a bad skin sickness at that time, but God made a Syrian man better, not one of us Israel people.”

²⁸Those people in the meeting house heard Jesus say these things and they got real angry.

²⁹They got up and pushed him out of the town. That town is on a big hill, and that mob chased Jesus up that hill. They were going to throw him off the top of the cliff there, to kill him.

³⁰But Jesus turned around and walked through the middle of that mob, and went away.