Mathew - Chapter 8

Cure of a leper

^{1 ①} When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him.

²Then a leper came forward. He knelt before him and said, “Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean.” ³Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I want to, be clean again.” At that very moment the man was cleansed from his leprosy. ⁴Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not tell anyone, but go to the priest, have yourself declared clean, and offer the gift that Moses ordered as proof of it.”

The faith of the centurion

^{5 ②} When Jesus entered Capernaum, an army captain approached him to ask his help, ⁶“Sir, my servant lies sick at home. He is paralyzed and suffers terribly.” ⁷Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

⁸The captain answered, “I am not worthy to have you under my roof. Just give an order and my boy will be healed. ⁹For I myself, a junior officer, give orders to my soldiers. And if I say to one: ‘Go,’ he goes, and if I say to another: ‘Come,’ he comes, and to my servant: ‘Do this,’ he does it.”

¹⁰When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those who were following him, “I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel. ¹¹I say to you, many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven; ¹²but the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness; there they will wail and grind their teeth.”

¹³Then Jesus said to the captain, “Go home now. As you believed, so let it be.” And at that moment his servant was healed.

¹⁴Jesus went to Peter’s house and found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with fever. ¹⁵He took her by the hand and the fever left her; she got up and began to wait on him.

¹⁶Towards evening they brought to Jesus many possessed by evil spirits, and with a word he drove out the spirits. He also healed all who were sick. ¹⁷In doing this he fulfilled what was said by the prophet Isaiah: He bore our infirmities and took on himself our diseases.

¹⁸When he saw the crowd press around him, Jesus gave orders to cross to the other shore. ¹⁹A teacher of the Law approached him and said, “Master, I will follow you wherever you go.” ²⁰Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

²¹Another disciple said to him, “Lord, let me go and bury my father first.” ²²But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Jesus calms the storm

²³Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him. ²⁴With out warning a fierce storm hit the lake, with waves sweeping the boat. But Jesus was asleep.

²⁵They woke him and cried, “Lord save us! We are lost!” ²⁶But Jesus answered, “Why are you so afraid, you of little faith?” Then he stood up and ordered the wind and sea; and it became completely calm.

²⁷The people were astonished. They said, “What kind of man is he? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”

The demoniacs and the pigs

²⁸When Jesus reached Gadara on the other side, he was met by two demoniacs who came out from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one dared to pass that way. ²⁹Suddenly they shouted, “What do you want with us, you, Son of God? Have you come to torture us before the time?”

³⁰At some distance away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. ³¹So the demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs.” ³²Jesus ordered them, “Go.” So they left and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned.

³³The men in charge of them ran off to the town, where they told the whole story, also what had happened to the men possessed with the demons. ³⁴Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their area.