As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way,

He proclaimed, “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals.

Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people!”

Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother in their boat mending nets.

Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

They were all amazed so that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

Cleansing a Leper

Now a leper came to him and fell to his knees, asking for help. “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” he said.

As he went along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him.

As Jesus was having a meal in Levi’s home, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

And he said to them, “Take care about what you hear. The measure you use will be the measure you receive, and more will be added to you.

Just as Jesus was getting out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came from the tombs and met him.

Then he cried out with a loud voice, “Leave me alone, Jesus, Son of the Most High God! I implore you by God—do not torment me!”

But Jesus did not permit him to do so. Instead, he said to him, “Go to your home and to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you, that he had mercy on you.”

His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you and you say, ‘Who touched me?’”

Then, gently taking the child by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up.”

For Herod himself had sent men, arrested John, and bound him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her.

When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.”

He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat).

Now there were 5,000 men who ate the bread.

He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’

But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you would have received from me is corban’ (that is, a gift for God),

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand.

For it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and then goes out into the sewer.” (This means all foods are clean.)

“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have already been here with me three days, and they have nothing to eat.