380-381 : Jesus Heals
ONE day, as Jesus sat eating, many tax-collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples,
"Why does your master eat with tax-collectors and sinners?"
And Jesus, answering, said to them: "They that are healthy do not need a physician, but they that are sick.
Go and learn what this means: 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.'
For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.')
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying,
"Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, while your disciples do not fast?"
And Jesus said to them: "Do wedding guests mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then they shall fast."
THE SABBATH DAY
At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn.
His disciples were hungry and began to pluck ears of corn, and to eat.
When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him,
"Behold, your disciples are doing what it is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day."
But he said to them: "Have you not read what David did, and those who were with him, when he was hungry: how he entered into the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat,nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
"Or have you not read in the law,
how on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are blameless?
But I say to you that in this place is one greater than the temple.
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day."
JESUS HEALS
And he went out from there and went into their synagogue where there was a man who had his hand withered. And they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" so that they might accuse him.
Then Jesus said to them:
"What man is there among you that, if he has a sheep that falls into a pit on the sabbath day,
will not take hold of it and lift it out?
How much better is a man than a sheep? It is therefore lawful to do good on the sabbath."
Then he said to the man, "Stretch forth your hand."
And he stretched it forth and it was restored whole like the other.
Then the Pharisees went out, and held a meeting against him, to plan how they might destroy him.
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool.
Around it lay a great multitude of invalid folk, of blind, lame and withered, waiting for the water to move.
For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and troubled the water.
And whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was cured of whatever disease he had.
THE INVALID AT THE POOL
A certain man was there who had had a sickness for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him,
"Do you wish to be made healthy?"
The invalid man answered, "Sir, I have no man to put me in the pool when the water is troubled,
and while I am going, another steps down before me.
Jesus said to him "Rise, take up your bed, and walk." And immediately the man was made healthy,
and took up his bed, and walked.
Now that day was the sabbath.
Therefore the Jews said to him that was cured, "It is the sabbath day.
It is not lawful for you to carry your bed." He answered them,
"He that made me healthy said to me, 'Take up your bed and walk."'
Then they asked him, "What man is the one who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk?"'
But he that was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had gone away, a crowd being in the place.
Afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "Behold, you are well.
Sin no more, lest a worse thing come to you."
The man departed, and told the priests that it was Jesus who had healed him.
And therefore the authorities persecuted Jesus, and tried to slay him,
because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
But Jesus answered them, "My Father is for ever at work, and so am I."
Therefore his enemies tried even more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath,
but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
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