Mark 9:19-41

¹⁹Jesus replied by saying to those people, “◄I am very disappointed that although you have observed how I help people, you do not believe that you are able to do anything!/Why is it that although you have observed how I help people, you do not believe that you are able to do anything?► RHQ ◄I have been with you a long time, and you still cannot do what I do!/How long do I have to be with you before you can do what I do?► RHQ Bring the boy to me!”

²⁰So they brought the boy to Jesus. As soon as the evil spirit saw Jesus, it shook the boy severely, and the boy fell on the ground. He rolled around, and he foamed at the mouth.

²¹Jesus asked the boy's father, “How long has he been like this?” He replied, “ This started to happen when he was a child.

²²The spirit does not only do this, but he also often throws him into the fire or into the water in order to kill him. But, pity us and help us, if you can!”

²³Jesus exclaimed to him, “ Do not say RHQ ‘If you can’, for God/I can do anything for people who believe in him/me!”

²⁴Immediately the child's father shouted, “I believe that you can help me, but I do not believe strongly. Help me to believe more strongly!”

²⁵Because Jesus wanted to heal the boy before the crowd got bigger, he rebuked the evil spirit, saying, “You evil spirit, you who are causing this boy to be deaf and unable to talk! I command you to come out of him and never enter him again!”

²⁶The evil spirit shouted, it shook the boy violently, and then it left the boy. The boy did not move. He seemed like a dead body. So many of the people there said, “He is dead!”

²⁷However, Jesus took him by the hand and helped him get up. Then the boy stood up. He was healed!

²⁸Later, when Jesus and his disciples were alone in a house, one of them asked him, “Why were we not able to expel the evil spirit?”

²⁹He said to them, “You can expel this kind of evil spirit only by your praying that God will give you the power to do it. There is no other way that you can expel them.”

³⁰After Jesus and his disciples left that district , they traveled through Galilee district . Jesus did not want anyone else to know that he was in their area ; he did not want

³¹anyone to interrupt him as he taught his disciples. He was telling them, “ Some day my enemies SYN will seize MTY me, the one who came from heaven, and I will be handed over to other men. Those men will kill me. But on the third day after I am killed {after they kill me}, I will become alive again!”

³²But they did not understand what he was telling them. Also, they were afraid to ask him about what he had said.

³³Jesus and his disciples returned to Capernaum town. When they were in the house, he asked them, “What were you discussing while we were traveling on the road?”

³⁴But they did not reply. They were ashamed to reply because, while they were traveling, they had been arguing with each other about which one of them would be the most important when Jesus became king.

³⁵He sat down, he summoned the twelve disciples to come close to him, and then he said to them, “If anyone wants God to consider him to be the most important person of all, he must consider himself to be the least important person of all, and he must serve everyone else.”

³⁶Then he took a child and placed him among them. He took the child in his arms and then he said to them,

³⁷“Those who, because they love me, welcome a child like this one, God considers that they are welcoming me. So it is as though they are also welcoming God, who sent me.”

³⁸John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone who was expelling demons, ◄ claiming he had authority from you to do that/while telling people that you have told him to do it►. So we told him to stop doing it because he was not one of us disciples.”

³⁹Jesus said, “Do not tell him not to do that! For no one will speak evilly about me just after he performs a miracle while saying that I have told him to do it.

⁴⁰Furthermore, those who are not opposing us are trying to achieve the same goals that we are.

⁴¹Also think about this: Those who belong to me who help you in any way, even if they just give you a cup of water to drink because you follow me, the Messiah, will certainly be rewarded by God!”