Mark 2:13-22

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus Calls Levi

¹³ Jesus^[a] went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them.^{(A) 14} As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.^(B)

¹⁵ And as he sat at dinner^[b] in Levi’s^[c] house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting^[d] with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the scribes of^[e] the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat^[f] with tax collectors and sinners?”^{(C) 17} When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”^(D)

The Question about Fasting

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people^[g] came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁹ Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.^(E)

²¹ “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. ²² Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins, but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”^[h]