Mark 9:28-47

²⁸After that Jesus and his followers went into a house, and his followers asked him quietly, “Why couldn’t we force that bad spirit out of the boy?”

²⁹Jesus told them, “The only way you can force that kind of bad spirit out of anyone is to pray and get God to force it out.”

³⁰Later Jesus and his followers left that place and went through Galilee country. As they walked along he was teaching his followers. He didn’t want everyone to know where he was going, so they went along secretly and quietly. He told them about what was going to happen to him. He said, “I’m God’s special man from heaven, but bad men will grab me, and they will kill me. But after 3 days I will come alive again.”

³²The followers of Jesus couldn’t understand what he was talking about, but they felt too ashamed to ask him any more questions.

³³While they walked along the road Jesus’s followers argued with each other about which one of them was the most important. After they got to Capernaum they went into the house that they were going to camp in, and Jesus asked them what they were arguing about on the road. His followers were ashamed and said nothing.

³⁵Jesus sat down and said, “If anyone wants to be the leader, that person has to think to himself, ‘I’m not important at all.’ And he has to be a workman for everybody else.”

³⁶There was a young kid in that house and Jesus picked him up and said, “Look at this little kid. If you follow me and you are friendly to little kids like this one and you help them, well really, you are friendly to me too. And if you are friendly to me, well really, you are friendly to my Father in heaven too. He is the one that sent me here.”

³⁸John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man using your power by saying your name to send bad spirits out of people. He’s not one of our mob, so we told him to stop.”

³⁹But Jesus said, “No. Don’t stop him. If somebody uses my power by saying my name to do good and powerful things for people, he can’t soon turn around and say bad things about me.

⁴⁰You see, if somebody is not trying to block us, well really, he is on our side.

⁴¹And if somebody knows you are my follower, and so he tries to help you, even if he just gives you a drink of water, God will be sure to pay him with something good for that good thing he did.

⁴²But, if a little one trusts me and somebody gets him to do something bad, God will properly punish that person. Suppose somebody will get a big rock and tie it to that person’s neck and throw him into the sea and drown him, that will be bad for him, but not as bad as the trouble God will give him for getting that little one to go wrong.

⁴³And if there is something that gets you to go wrong, you have to do something about it. If your hand gets you to do something bad you have to stop it, like as if you cut off your hand. It is better for you to live for ever with only one hand than go to hell with 2 hands. That fire in hell never goes out.

⁴⁵Just the same, if your foot takes you the wrong way, to get you to do something bad, you have to stop it, like as if you cut off your foot. It is better for you to have only one foot and live for ever than go to hell with 2 feet.

⁴⁷It is the same for your eye. If your eye looks at the wrong things and gets you to do something bad, you have to stop it, like as if you dig your eye out. It is better for you to go to be with God with only one good eye than go to hell with 2 eyes.