Luke 5

While Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret, the crowd pressed around him to hear the word of God. He saw two boats at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets.” When they did this, they enclosed a great number of fish, and their nets began to tear. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats until they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For amazement had seized him and all who were with him at the catch of fish they had taken, and likewise James and John, Zebedee’s sons, who were Simon’s partners. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch people alive.” They brought the boats to shore, left everything, and followed him. While he was in one of the towns, a man covered with leprosy saw Jesus, fell facedown, and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him. He ordered him to tell no one, but said, “Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But the news about him spread all the more, and large crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their illnesses. Yet he would withdraw to deserted places and pray. One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem. The Lord’s power was with him to heal. Some men brought a paralyzed man on a bed and tried to take him inside and lay him before Jesus. Finding no way to take him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his bed through the tiles into the midst of the crowd, in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins have been forgiven.” The scribes and Pharisees began to reason, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus knew their thoughts and answered them, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins have been forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralyzed man—“I tell you, get up, take your bed, and go home.” Immediately he stood up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Amazement seized them all, and they glorified God. Filled with fear, they said, “We have seen extraordinary things today!” After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. He said to him, “Follow me.” Leaving everything, he got up and followed him. Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house. A large crowd of tax collectors and others were reclining at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” They said to him, “John’s disciples fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise he will tear the new one, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, and it will spill out, and the skins will be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. And no one who has drunk old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

Rights and attribution