1 There was a time when the crowd was pressing in on him, listening to God’s message, and he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,a 2 he saw two boats placed by the lake. The fishers who had gotten out of them were washing the nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simeon’s, he asked Simeon to put out a little from the shore. After sitting down, he began teaching the crowds from the boat.
4 When he stopped speaking, he told Simeon, “Put out into the deep and lower yourb nets for a catch.”
5 “Sir,”c Simeon answered, “We worked hard all night and caught nothing, but if you say so, I’ll lower the nets.”
6 When they did it, they hauled in a massive catch of fish, and their nets started to tear. 7 They gestured to their comrades in the other boat to come help them bring it in. They came and filled both boats to the point of sinking them.
8 When he saw it, Simeon Peter threw himself at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Get away from me, sir, because I am a man who deviates!”d 9 He and everyone with him were stunned because of the catch of fish that they had taken in together. 10 Jacobe and Johnf the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simeon, were equally stunned.
“Don’t be afraid,” Jesus to Simeon, “From now on, you’ll be catching people.” 11 After bringing the boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns—shockingly—a man covered with a skin diseaseg was there. When he saw Jesus, he got down with his face to the ground and begged him, saying, “Sir, if you are willing, you can cleanse me.”
13 Stretching out his hand, Jesus held onto the man and said, “I’m willing. Be cleansed.” Immediately, the skin disease left him. 14 He urged the man not to tell anyone, “But go show yourself to the priest and bring the offering as Moses assignedh as your report to them.”
15 Word of Jesus spread further, and large crowds were gathering to hear him and be healed of their illnesses.i 16 Jesus himself would often withdraw to solitary places and pray.
17 On one of the days he was teaching, Pharisees and Torah teachers were sitting nearby, having come from Jerusalem and every village in Galilee and Judea, and the power of The One Who Is was on him for restoring well-being.
18 Unexpectedly, people came carrying someone who was paralyzed on a stretcher, and they were looking to bring him inside and place him in front of Jesus. 19 After failing to find a way to carry him inside through the crowd and going up to the roof, they lowered him on the stretcher down through the clayj into the middle of the room in front of Jesus.
20 At seeing their faithfulness,k he said, “Friend, your deviationsl have been dismissed for you.”
21 The Bible scholars and Pharisees began to scrutinize him, saying, “Who is this person who speaks disrespectful thingsm? Who can dismiss deviations except God alone?”
22 When Jesus recognized their scrutiny, he responded to them, “What are you scrutinizing in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your deviations have been forgiven for you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 Now, so that you’ll understand that the Son of Humanity has the right to dismiss deviations in the land….”
He said to the person who had been paralyzed, “I tell you: Rise up, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”
25 Immediately, he stood up right in front of them, picking up the stretcher, and he went away to his house praising God. 26 Everyone there was beside themselves, and they praised God and were filled with awe,n saying, “We have seen incredible things today!”
27 Afterward, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levio sitting at the tax booth.
“Follow me,” he told him. 28 Standing up and leaving everything behind, he followed Jesus.
29 Levi held a large banquet for Jesus at his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were sitting with them. 30 The Pharisees and their Bible scholars complained to his students, saying, “Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and deviators?”
31 “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but people suffering from illness do,” Jesus responded to them. 32 “I haven’t come to call people who are alignedp but people who deviate.”
33 Then they said to him, “John’s students frequently fast and make requests, and the students of the Pharisees do the same, but yours go on eating and drinking.”
34 “You can’t make the groomsmenq fast while the groom is with them, can you?” Jesus said to them. 35 “But the timer will come when the groom will be carried off,s away from them. Then, that’s whent they will fast.”
36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and attaches it to an old garment. If they do, both the new one will be torn and the patch from the new one will also not match the old one. 37 Also, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will burst the wineskins, and both the wine will be spilled out and the wineskin will also be ruined. 38 Instead, new wine should be put in new wineskins. 39 No one who drinks old wine wants new wine. They say, ‘The old one is good!’”u
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FOOTNOTES:
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a. Also called the Sea of Galilee and Sea of Tiberius.
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b. This is plural, indicating there is a whole crew and not just Simeon.
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c. Traditionally, ‘Master,’ The Greek word here is epistata, a respectful form of address used exclusively by Jesus’ disciples. It derives from the root epistamai, meaning “to know, understand, or be acquainted with,” and is related to the idea of someone who stands over or supervises—hence a guide, overseer, or leader. Many traditional translations render it “Master,” but that carries authoritarian connotations absent from the Greek. The term conveys relational respect rather than institutional authority.
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d. The word in Greek here is hamartolos, traditionally translated ‘sinner.’ The word, however, is not a noun but an adjective, describing something about someone, not labeling the whole person. The actual meaning is an archery term for missing the target; it’s a metaphor. It evokes an image of veering off course, ending up in at an unintended location. It is used regarding many situations, including harmful behavior, disregarding responsibilities as a people or individual called to a specific purpose, and even having chronic illness or debilitating injuries or cultural identities that prohibit one from full participation in temple worship according to the Torah, which is not implied to be wrongdoing but simply not aligned with Torah.
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e. Traditionally: ‘James.’ The Greek is Iakobos, from the Hebrew Ya’aqov, which is the same as it uses for Jacob son of Isaac and Jacob grandfather of Jesus. Jacob is the English name as it came through German, and James is the English name as it came through French. That way, it turned into two names in English, but it started as the same name in Hebrew and Greek.
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f. This has traditionally been translated as “John.” It is from the Hebrew name Yohanan, which means “God has been gracious” or “My God is gracious.”
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g. Despite the Greek word lepra, being where the English word ‘leprosy’ comes from, it almost certainly was not the same disease referred to by that name in the 21st century.
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h. Reference to Leviticus 14:1-32
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i. The word for ‘illnesses’ here, astheneia, could also mean weaknesses, frailties, disempowerments, lack of resources, and lack of social influence.
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j. First-century Galilean houses were single-room, basalt-walled homes grouped around a shared courtyard. A short exterior stairway led to a flat roof framed with wooden or stone beams, overlaid with reeds and roughly 8–12 inches of packed, clay-rich mud. Such roofs were routinely patched, so cutting a stretcher-sized opening and lowering it required only scraping away the mud and lifting a few reeds.
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k. Traditionally, ‘faith.’ The Greek term pistis communicates meanings such as trust, faithfulness, commitment, and allegiance, reflecting an active, relational trust rather than a static belief. This translation emphasizes an ongoing, reciprocal relationship between trusting someone and committed faithfulness that confirms trustworthiness.
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l. The word in Greek here is hamartia, traditionally translated ‘sin.’ The actual meaning is an archery term for missing the target; it’s a metaphor. The idea is not that it is bad behavior or rule breaking. The word torah is the noun version of the Hebrew verb for ‘shoot’ an arrow and ‘send’ instruction. Hamartia is veering off course, the course traced out by Torah that leads to New Creation/God’s Reign/The Great Jubilee-Shabbat. Much of what is referred to as ‘deviation’ is about actions that don’t align with Torah, but some of it is about states of being that don’t align with Torah’s vision of all things well, including illness and injury, which cannot be treated as moral failing in any way. The English word ‘sin’ on the other hand, comes from a root with an entirely different meaning; it derives from the Old English synn, which meant ‘wrongdoing’ or ‘guilt,’ which in turn derived from the Latin word sons, meaning ‘guilty.’
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m. Traditionally, ‘this man speaks blasphemies’ from the Greek word blasphemia. The Greek word means ‘slander ‘defamation’ or ‘belittlement.’ The ‘belittlement’ meaning seems to be in view since he did not say anything against God or anyone else. Possibly they see dismissing their understanding of purity codes and sin as belittling God’s instruction and, therefore, belittling God. Or since they see him as doing something only God can do, perhaps they see it as belittling God by not taking it seriously enough.
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n. Or ‘numinosity’
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o. This is the same person who is referred to as “Matthew” in Matthew 9:9 (Matthew is the English transliteration of Maththaios, the Greek version of the Hebrew name Mattityahu, which means "gift of God").
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p. This word is dikaios, traditionally ‘righteous.’ The word is related to ‘just’ or ‘straight’ or ‘aligned’ and it usually refers to being aligned with Torah and justice, the path of the Lord. In this case, it is referring directly to alignment with God or the path traced out by Torah and lived out by Jesus.
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q. Literally, this reads, “sons of the wedding hall,” an idiom for the men who are guests of the groom and care for tasks on his behalf.
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r. Literally, ‘the days’
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s. The word for ‘carried off” here is often translated as ‘taken away.’ It means more than simply not being present anymore and carries the sense of being captured or abducted, carried away by force.
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t. Literally, ‘in those days’
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u. Or ‘pleasant’ or ‘suitable’