The King performs various miracles and meets with hatred and opposition
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📚✭At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields✭, and his disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and to eat. 2 📚✭But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath”.3 📚✭But he said to them, “Have you not read what David did, when he and those with him were hungry? 4 📚How he went into the house of God, and ate the Showbread,✭ which was not lawful for him, or for those with him, to eat, but only for the priests? 5 📚✭Or have you not read in the Law, how that on the Sabbaths the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 📚✭But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 📚But if you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 📚✭For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath”.
9 📚And when he left there, he went into their synagogue. 10 📚✭And now a man was there who had a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbaths?” so that they might accuse him.
11 📚✭And he said to them, “Among you what if a man has one sheep, and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath. Will he not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 📚How much more important is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbaths”.
13 📚✭Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand”. And he stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, as sound as the other. 14 📚✭Then the Pharisees went out, and held a meeting against him, discussing how they could destroy him.
15 📚But Jesus, knowing this, withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all, 16 📚and told them that they should not make him known, 17 📚✭so that there might be a fulfilment of what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying,
18 📚✭See my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved, in whom my soul delights.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim judgment
to the Gentiles.
19 📚He will not quarrel or cry out;
neither will any man hear his voice
in the streets.
20 📚✭He will not break a bruised reed,
and he will not quench smoking flax,
until he sends out judgment to victory.
21 📚✭And in his name the Gentiles will trust.
22 📚Then one who was demon-possessed, blind, and unable to speak, was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the blind and mute both spoke and saw. 23 📚✭And all the people were amazed, and said, “Is not this the son of David?”
24 📚✭But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “This fellow does not drive out demons except by Beelzebub the prince of demons”.
25 📚And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. 26 📚And if Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27 📚✭And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28 📚✭But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.
29 📚✭“Or else how can someone enter a strong man's house, and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.
30 📚✭“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. 31 📚✭Therefore I say to you, Every kind of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy✭ against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven to men.
The unpardonable sin
32 📚✭And whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come.
33 📚✭“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For a tree is known by its fruit. 34 📚✭Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For the mouth speaks out of the overflow of the heart. 35 📚A good man brings out good things from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil man brings out evil things from the evil treasure. 36 📚✭But I tell you that in the day of judgment men will give an account for every careless word that they speak. 37 📚✭For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned”.
38 📚✭Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you”.
39 📚✭But he answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a miraculous sign. And no such sign will be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 📚✭For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish,✭ so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 📚✭The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And, look, a greater than Jonah is here. 42 📚✭The queen of the south will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it. For she came from the farthest parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And, look, a greater than Solomon is here.
43 📚“When the unclean spirit✭ has gone out of a man, it walks through dry places, looking for rest and finding none. 44 📚Then it says, ‘I will return to my house✭ from which I came.’ And when it has come, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 📚✭Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. This is how it will be with this wicked generation”.
The King speaks of His mother, brothers and sisters
46 📚✭While he was still talking to the people, suddenly his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak with him. 47 Then someone said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you”.
48 📚But he answered and said to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?” 49 📚✭And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, “See my mother and my brothers! 50 📚For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, that one is my brother, and sister, and mother”.