1Jesus and his followers left that country and went back to his own community, called Nazareth.
2On the Jewish people’s rest day Jesus went to the Jewish meeting place and started to teach the people God’s message. A lot of the people heard his words and were really shocked. They said, “Hey, we know this man. He comes from this place. His mother Mary lives here with his brothers James, Joses, Judas and Simon, as well as his sisters. His job here is to make things with wood. How does he know so much? And where did he get the power to do clever things for people?” Those Nazareth people got upset and they wouldn’t take any notice of him.
4Jesus then said to them, “If God gives a man a message, lots of people know he is God’s man and they respect him. But not the people that knew that special man from the time he was a little boy. They don’t respect him. Even his close family and relations don’t listen to him.”
5The people of his own community didn’t believe in Jesus, and he was really shocked. So he couldn’t do anything really powerful there. He only touched a few sick people and made them better. Then he left them and went to other little communities, and taught them God’s words.
7Jesus called together his 12 close followers. He told them, “You have to go to every community and tell my message to the people. Let them take care of you when you go there. Don’t take a bag, or food, or money or spare clothes with you. Just take your sandals and a walking stick. After you get to a community, and that community is happy for you to stay, you have to camp in only one house. Don’t move around to different houses. But if a community doesn’t want to have you there, and if they will not listen to you, then you have to go away from it. As you leave it, shake the dust off your feet. That will show that mob that they will get trouble. It will be like you are telling them, ‘You didn’t take notice of my message, so God will judge you and punish you.’” And Jesus told his close followers, “I’m giving you my power now to force bad spirits out from people.” Then Jesus split them into 6 teams with 2 men in each team, and sent them out to do God’s work.
12The teams did as Jesus told them. They went to other communities and told everyone to turn around, change their lives and come back to God’s way.
13Those men sent a lot of bad spirits out of people. And they put olive oil on a lot of sick people, like medicine for them, and those sick people got better.
14This is the story about what happened to John the Baptiser. The big boss called King Herod had a brother called Philip. Philip had a wife called Herodias. Herodias didn’t want to live with Philip any more, so she left him, and married Herod. John kept on telling Herod, “You are breaking God’s law. You shouldn’t have your brother’s wife.” Herodias hated John for saying this and she wanted to kill him, but Herod sent some soldiers to grab John and keep him in jail, so Herodias couldn’t do anything to him. John was a good man and lived God’s way all the time, so Herod was frightened of him. And Herod liked to talk with John, but John’s words confused him and upset him. Some time later Herod had a birthday party, and Herodias got her chance to hurt John. All the leaders of Herod’s army and the government bosses from Galilee country were there at Herod’s party. The daughter of Herodias danced for them at that party. Everybody was really happy with her dancing, so Herod made a strong promise to her, he told her, “I want to give you a really good present. You can ask for anything. I will give you anything you ask for, even as much as half of this country. This is true. I’m not lying.” That young girl went outside and asked her mother, “What will I ask for?” Her mother said, “Go back in and ask the big boss to send a soldier to cut off John the Baptiser’s head, and give it to you as a present.” The girl ran back into the party and said to King Herod, “I want you to give me John the Baptiser’s head on a big plate, and I want it right now.” When Herod heard these words he was really sad. But he didn’t want to break his promise and be ashamed, so he sent a soldier to cut off John’s head and bring it back to the girl on a big plate. The soldier went to the jail and cut off John’s head and brought it back to the party, and he gave it to the young girl, and then she gave it to her mother. John’s friends heard this bad news. They came and got his body, then they took it away and buried it. Later lots of people heard about what Jesus was doing and they talked about him all the time. Some people said, “Jesus is really Elijah, that old man that told God’s message a long time ago. God made him alive again.” Some other people said, “Jesus is a man talking for God, just like those other men that told God’s message a long time ago.” But some people reckoned, “Jesus is really John the Baptiser. God made John alive again and gave him power to do great things.” King Herod heard these stories and said, “I got my soldiers to cut John’s head off, but this man now, he has to be John the Baptiser. I reckon God made him alive again.”
30Some time later the 12 close followers of Jesus came back from telling his message to all the communities. They stood around Jesus and told him everything they did and what they taught the people in the communities.
31While they were talking, lots of other people were coming up to Jesus all the time, so Jesus and his followers didn’t get a chance to eat any food. Jesus was worried for his followers, so he said to them, “Let’s go to a quiet place out bush so that you can rest for a while.”
32So Jesus and his followers got into a boat and started to go across the lake to a quiet place away from all the people. But lots of people saw them leave.
33They were from a lot of different communities, but they knew the place that Jesus and his close followers were going to. They ran around the side of the lake and got there first, before the boat.
34Jesus and his close followers came to that place and got out of the boat. Jesus looked at the mob of people waiting for him and he felt sad inside for them. They didn’t have anyone looking after them. They were like a mob of sheep that had no boss to take care of them. So Jesus started to teach them lots of things.
35At the end of the day, the close followers of Jesus went to him and said, “It’s nearly time for the sun to go down and we are way out here in the bush.
36You have to send the people away from here so that they can find some food. They can go to a nearby farm or community to buy some food to eat.”
37Jesus said to them, “You mob give them some food to eat.” But they said, “What? We haven’t got that much food. Do you want us to go and buy a lot of bread for them? That will cost thousands of dollars.”
38Jesus said to his followers, “How much food have you got? Go and have a look.” They came back to him and said, “We’ve got 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.”
39Jesus told his followers to get the people to sit on the green grass in groups, maybe about 50 people or about 100 people in each group.
41Then Jesus picked up the bread and the fish, looked up to the sky and said, “Thank you God for this bread and fish.” Then Jesus broke up the bread and fish and gave the pieces to his followers to give to the people.
42All of the people had a good feed
43and after that Jesus’s followers picked up the bits of food left over. They filled up 12 big baskets with the food that people didn’t eat.
44A really big mob of people had a feed that day. There were 5,000 men, as well as women and kids.
45As soon as they finished eating Jesus told his followers, “Get into your boat and row across the lake to a place called Bethsaida. I will follow you mob some time later.” Then he started telling all the people, “You mob can go home now. Goodbye.”
46After he said goodbye to them Jesus went up into the hills to pray.
47Night time came, and Jesus was still on the land all alone, and the boat was half-way across the lake.
48Later that night Jesus looked out and saw that his followers were having a hard time rowing the boat. The wind was stopping them. Just before daylight Jesus walked on the water toward to the boat and it looked like he was going to keep going past them.
49The followers of Jesus saw him walking on the water and they thought he was a ghost. They got really frightened and screamed. Straight away Jesus said to them, “It’s all right. It’s me, Jesus. Don’t be frightened.”
51Then Jesus got into the boat with his followers and straight away the wind stopped blowing. The men in the boat were surprised.
52They still couldn’t understand about Jesus. They saw what he did with the bread and fish the day before, but they couldn’t work it out. It was like their brains were no good.
53Then they came to the land again, to the country called Gennesaret, and they tied up the boat.
54A lot of people saw Jesus getting out of the boat and they knew who he was,
55so they ran around everywhere to the sick people in that country and carried them on swags to Jesus.
56As Jesus went into communities and towns, people carried their sick ones to the middle of the town and put them on the ground, so Jesus could see them. Those sick people asked Jesus if they could touch his clothes, and everyone that touched his clothes got better.
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