Mark 3

¹ Another time he went into the synagogue, and there was a man present whose hand was withered.

² And they were watching him to see if he would cure him on the Sabbath day, hoping for something tocharge him with.

³ He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Get up and stand in the middle!'

⁴ Then he said to them, 'Is it permitted on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to kil ?'But they said nothing.

⁵ Then he looked angrily round at them, grieved to find them so obstinate, and said to the man, 'Stretchout your hand.' He stretched it out and his hand was restored.

⁶ The Pharisees went out and began at once to plot with the Herodians against him, discussing how todestroy him.

⁷ Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lakeside, and great crowds from Galilee fol owed him. FromJudaea,

⁸ and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea and Transjordan and the region of Tyre and Sidon, greatnumbers who had heard of al he was doing came to him.

⁹ And he asked his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, to keep him from beingcrushed.

¹⁰ For he had cured so many that al who were afflicted in any way were crowding forward to touch him.

¹¹ And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, would fal down before him and shout, 'You are theSon of God!'

¹² But he warned them strongly not to make him known.

¹³ He now went up onto the mountain and summoned those he wanted. So they came to him

¹⁴ and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message,

¹⁵ with power to drive out devils.

¹⁶ And so he appointed the Twelve, Simon to whom he gave the name Peter,

¹⁷ James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or'Sons of Thunder';

¹⁸ Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon theZealot

¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, the man who was to betray him.

²⁰ He went home again, and once more such a crowd col ected that they could not even have a meal.

²¹ When his relations heard of this, they set out to take charge of him; they said, 'He is out of his mind.'

²² The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, 'Beelzebul is in him,' and, 'It is throughthe prince of devils that he drives devils out.'

²³ So he cal ed them to him and spoke to them in parables,

²⁴ 'How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot last.

²⁵ And if a household is divided against itself, that household can never last.

²⁶ Now if Satan has rebel ed against himself and is divided, he cannot last either -- it is the end of him.

²⁷ But no one can make his way into a strong man's house and plunder his property unless he has firsttied up the strong man. Only then can he plunder his house.

²⁸ 'In truth I tel you, al human sins will be forgiven, and al the blasphemies ever uttered;

²⁹ but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternalsin.'

³⁰ This was because they were saying, 'There is an unclean spirit in him.'

³¹ Now his mother and his brothers arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him.

³² A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, 'Look, your mother andbrothers and sisters are outside asking for you.'

³³ He replied, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?'

³⁴ And looking at those sitting in a circle round him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers.

³⁵ Anyone who does the wil of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.'