1Some time later, Jesus went back to the town called Capernaum. The people heard that Jesus was home again,
2so they all went to see him. Soon the house was too full and there was a big mob outside too.
3While Jesus was inside, teaching the people God’s story, some men came to the house with a crippled man on a swag. They wanted to get that man close to Jesus, so that Jesus could make him better.
4But those men found a lot of people blocking the house. So they carried the sick man up on to the flat roof of the house and made a hole in it. Then they picked up the sick man on his swag and put him down through the hole to where Jesus was.
5Jesus saw them do this, and so he knew that they really trusted him. Then Jesus said to the crippled man, “You know all the bad things you did? I will make you not guilty of them, and God will not punish you.”
6But some of the Jewish law men didn’t like Jesus saying that. These law men were thinking,
7“Hey, he can’t say that. Only God can talk that way. This man is talking like he is God. He can’t talk like that. He is shaming God.”
8Straight away, Jesus knew what the Jewish law men were thinking, so he said, “You are thinking the wrong way. I might say to this man, ‘You did bad things, but I will make you not guilty of them.’ Or I might say to him, ‘Get up, pick up your swag and go home.’ I can do both of these things.
10I will show you that I’m the boss over sickness, and God also said I can make people like they are not guilty, so that God will not punish them. I’m God’s special man from heaven, and I have the power to say these things, and I have the power to do these things.” Then Jesus looked at the crippled man and said,
11“Come on, get up, pick up your swag and go home.”
12Straight away, that man got up, rolled up his swag in front of all the people, walked out of the house and went home. Everybody there saw him do it and they got a big surprise. They started talking about it. They praised God, telling him he is really good. They said, “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
13After this Jesus left the house and walked along next to the lake. The people from the town kept coming to him, so he kept teaching them.
14At that time the Roman people were the bosses of all that country, and they got some Jewish people to take tax money from the other Jewish people and give it to the Roman government. One tax man’s name was Levi, and his father’s name was Alphaeus. Jesus walked along and he saw Levi and said to him, “I want you to be one of my followers. Come on, follow me.” And straight away Levi stood up and went with Jesus.
15Later that day, after the sun went down, Jesus and his followers were having a feed at Levi’s house. There were lots of other people too. Some of those people were men that used to get tax money from people and give it to the Roman government, and some other people there didn’t live God’s way.
16The Jewish law teachers and other law men, called Pharisees, they saw Jesus eating with all those people. The law men asked Jesus’s followers, “Why does Jesus eat with those people that don’t live God’s way?”
17Jesus heard them, and said to them, “Listen, sick people need a doctor, but healthy people don’t need a doctor. I’m telling you, I’m like a doctor. You mob reckon these people do bad things, so I’m here to help them turn around and do good things. But you mob think you never do anything wrong yourselves, so I can’t help you.”
18The Pharisee law men sometimes stopped eating food for a while to show God that they respected him. The followers of John the Baptiser did the same. Some people came to Jesus and asked him, “How come your followers don’t stop eating food to make God happy, you know, just like the Pharisee mob and John’s followers?”
19Jesus said to them, “At a wedding ceremony everybody is happy and they all eat food together with the man that is getting married. It’s the same way for me. I’m still here, so my friends are happy and don’t need to stop eating food. Not yet.
20One day my enemies will take me away, then my friends will be sad, and they will stop eating food.”
21Then Jesus told them 2 picture stories about the things he was teaching, to get them to start thinking a new way. He said, “If you have an old coat with a hole in it, you can’t fix that hole with a new bit of cloth. If you try to do that, and then wash it, the new cloth will tear away and the coat will still be useless.
22And this is another story. You don’t put new drink into an old cracked bottle. That drink will all leak out and you will lose it. You have to put new drink into new bottles.”
23One day, on the Jewish rest day, Jesus and his followers walked through a garden that had seed food growing in it. They walked along and they got a bit hungry, so his followers grabbed some of the seeds to eat.
24The Jewish law men saw Jesus’s followers eating those seeds, and those law men got upset. They growled at Jesus and said, “Your mob are doing the wrong thing. Our Jewish law says that today is the rest day. But your mob are getting seeds off those plants. That is work. They are breaking our law.”
25Jesus said to them, “Hey. Remember the story about David and his men. You know, it was at that time Abiathar was the leader for the Jewish ceremonies. David and his men were really hungry,
26so David went into God’s ceremony place and got the special bread. Only the leaders of the Jewish ceremony can eat that bread. But David and his men ate that special bread, and so they broke our Jewish law, but God didn’t punish them.”
27Then Jesus said to them, “Listen to me now. God’s rest day is for people to have a rest, not just to follow laws.
28Listen, I am God’s special man from heaven, and I’m boss of everything. I am even the boss for our Jewish rest day. So I’m not worried that my friends are grabbing some seeds to eat.”
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