Mark 6:30-52

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.