Mark 8:1-26

¹Jesus kept on teaching the people in that country. A big mob of people stayed there and listened to him for 3 days, and in that time they finished up all their food.

²Jesus called his followers to come to him and said, “I feel really sorry for this mob. They are hungry and they’ve got nothing to eat.

³I can’t send them home like this. Some of them have walked a long way to get here and if they start walking home now they will get weak and fall down. We have to give them some food.”

⁴The followers of Jesus said, “Hey, this is a really big mob of people. We can’t get enough food out here in the bush to feed them all.”

⁵Jesus said, “How much bread have you got?” The men answered, “7 loaves of bread.”

⁶Then Jesus told the people to sit down on the ground. Then he picked up the 7 loaves and said, “Thank you God for this bread.” Then Jesus broke it up and gave it to his followers, and they gave it out to all the people.

⁷Somebody had some small fish and gave them to Jesus, and again he said, “Thank you God for these fish.” Then Jesus gave the fish to his followers to give out to the people.

⁸They all ate and ate until they were full. There was a lot left over. The people picked up all the bits from the ground and they filled up 7 baskets with food.

⁹After the people finished that feed Jesus told them to go home. There were 4,000 people in that big mob that had a feed that day.

¹⁰Straight away Jesus and his close followers got into a boat and went to a place called Dalmanutha, on the other side of the lake.

¹¹There were some Jewish law men called Pharisees there at that place. They heard people say that Jesus was there and they came to talk to him. They wanted to trick him, so they started to argue with him. They asked him, “Can you do something special with power, to show that God sent you?”

¹²Jesus was a little bit upset. He breathed deeply and said, “You mob that are alive today always want to see something powerful before you will believe that God sent me. Listen, I’m telling you straight, I will not do anything powerful for you mob here now.”

¹³Then Jesus and his followers walked away from those Pharisees and got into a boat and went across to the other side of the lake.

¹⁴But Jesus’s followers didn’t buy any food at Dalmanutha. They forgot to do it. Then, in the boat half way across the lake, they remembered about it. They looked into their food bag and saw that they only had one loaf of bread.

¹⁵Jesus talked to his followers. He said, “You know that we put that yeast into flour to make it rise up, to make it into bread. Well, I’m telling you this, stay away from the yeast that comes from those Pharisee law men, and stay away from the yeast that comes from the big boss called King Herod.”

¹⁶The men didn’t understand what Jesus meant, and they started to talk to each other about it. They said, “We didn’t get enough bread for the trip, so now he’s growling at us.”

¹⁷Jesus knew what they said to each other, and he said, “Why are you mob arguing about bread? You still haven’t learned about me. You don’t understand me. Maybe your minds are closed.

¹⁸You’ve got eyes but you don’t look. You’ve got ears but you don’t listen. You don’t remember anything, do you?

¹⁹Do you remember the time we had 5 loaves of bread and I gave food to 5,000 men? How many baskets of left over bits did you pick up?” The men said, “12 baskets full.”

²⁰Then Jesus said, “Do you remember the time we had 7 loaves of bread and I gave food to 4,000 people? How many baskets of left over bits did you pick up?” The men said, “7 baskets full.”

²¹Jesus asked them, “So how come you still don’t understand about me?”

²²Jesus and his followers came to a place called Bethsaida on the west side of Lake Galilee, and they got out of the boat. Some people brought a blind man up to him and asked Jesus to touch him and make him better.

²³Jesus held the man’s hand and led him outside the community. Then Jesus spat on the man’s eyes and then put his hands on him and said, “Can you see anything now?”

²⁴The man looked around and said, “Yes, I can see a little bit. I can see people, but they look like trees walking around.”

²⁵So Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes again. Then the man carefully looked around again, and his eyes were properly better, and he saw everything clearly.

²⁶Jesus told the man to go straight home. He said, “As you walk home, don’t go into that community. Don’t let anyone see that I made you better.”