The Gospel According to Mark, chapters 1 - 4
1 HERE BEGINS THE GOSPEL of Jesus Christ the Son
of God.
In the prophet Isaiah it stands written: 'Here is my herald
whom I send on ahead of you, and he will prepare your way. A voice crying
aloud in the wilderness, "Prepare a way for the Lord; clear a straight path
for him." ' And so it was that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness
proclaiming a baptism in token of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins;
and they flocked to him from the whole Judaean country-side and the city
of Jerusalem, and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing
their sins.
John was dressed in a rough coat of camel's hair, with a leather belt
round his waist, and he fed on locusts and wild honey. His proclamation
ran: 'After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not fit to unfasten
his shoes. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit.'
It happened at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and
was baptized in the Jordan by John. At the moment when he came up out
of the water, he saw the heaven torn open and the Spirit, like a dove,
descended upon him. And a voice spoke from Heaven: 'Thou art my Son,
my Beloved; on thee my favour rests.'
Thereupon the Spirit sent him away into the wilderness, and there he
remained for forty days tempted by Satan. He was among the wild beasts;
and the angels waited on him.
AFTER JOHN HAD BEEN ARRESTED, Jesus came into Galilee proclaim-
ing the Gospel of God: 'The time has come; the kingdom of God is
upon you; repent, an believe the Gospel.'
Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he saw Simon and his
brother Andrew on the lake at work with a casting-net; for they were
fishermen. Jesus said to them, 'Come with me, and I will make you fishers
of men.' And at once they left their nets and followed him.
When he had gone a little further he saw James son of Zebedee and his
brother John, who were in the boat overhauling their nets. He called them;
and, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, they went
off to follow him.
They came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath he went to synagogue and
began to teach. The people were astounded at his teaching, for, unlike the
doctors of the law, he taught with a note of authority. Now there was a man
in the synagogue possessed by an unclean spirit. He shrieked: 'What do
you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are — the Holy One of God.' Jesus rebuked him: 'Be silent',
he said, 'and come out of him.' And the unclean spirit threw the man into
convulsions and with a loud cry left him. They were all dumbfounded and
began to ask one another, 'What is this? A new kind of teaching! He speaks
with authority. When he gives orders, even the unclean spirits submit.'
The news spread rapidly, and he was soon spoken of all over the district of
Galilee.
On leaving the synagogue they went straight to the house of Simon and
Andrew; and James and John went wit them. Simon's mother-in-law
was ill in bed wit fever. They told him about her at once. He came
forward, took her by the hand, and helped her to her feet. The fever left
her and she waited upon them.
That evening after sunset the brought to him all who were ill or pos-
sessed by devils; and the whole town was there, gathered at the door. He
healed many who suffered from various diseases, and drove out many
devils. He would not let the devils speak, because they knew who he was.
Very early next morning he got up and went out. He went away to a lonely
spot and remained there in prayer. But Simon and his companions searched
him out, found him, and said, 'They are all looking for you.' He answered,
'Let us move on to the country towns in the neighbourhood; I have to
proclaim my message there also; that is what I came out to do.' So all
through Galilee he went, preaching in the synagogues and casting out the
devils.
Once he was approached by a leper, who knelt before him begging his
help. 'If only you will,' said the man, 'you can cleanse me.' In warm
indignation Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, 'Indeed
I will; be clean again.' The leprosy left him immediately, and he was clean.
Then he dismissed him with this stern warning: 'Be sure you say nothing
to anybody. Go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering
laid down by Moses for your cleansing; that will certify the cure.' But the
man went out and made the whole story public; he spread it far and wide,
until Jesus could no longer show himself in any town, but stayed outside in
the open country. Even so, people kept coming to him from all quarters.
2 When after some days he returned to Capernaum, the news went round
that he was at home; and such a crowd collected that the space in front of
the door was not big enough to hold them. And while he was proclaiming
the message to them, a man was brought who was paralysed. Four men
were carrying him, but because of the crowd they could not get him near.
So they opened up the roof over the place where Jesus was, and when they
had broken through they lowered the stretcher on which the paralysed man
was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, 'My
son your sins are forgiven.'
Now there were some lawyers sitting there and they thought to them-
selves, 'Why does this fellow talk like that? This is blasphemy! Who but
God alone can forgive sins?' Jesus knew in his own mind that this was
what they were thinking, and said to them: 'Why do you harbour thoughts
like these? Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, "Your sins are forgiven",
or to say, "Stand up, take your bed, and walk"? But to convince you that
the Son of Man has the right on earth to forgive sins' — he turned to the
paralysed man — 'I say to you, stand up, take your bed, and go home.'
And he got up, and at once took his stretcher and went out in full view of
them all, so that they were astounded and praised God. 'Never before', they
said, 'have we seen the like.'
Once more he went away to the lake-side. All the crowd came to him,
and he taught them there. As he went along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus
at his seat in the custom-house, and said to him, 'Follow me'; and Levi
rose and followed him.
When Jesus was at table in the house, many bad characters — tax-
gatherers and others — were seated with him and his disciples; for there
were many who followed him. Some doctors of the law who were Pharisees
noticed him eating in this bad company, and said to his disciples, 'He eats
with tax-gatherers and sinners!' Jesus heard it and said to them, 'It is not
the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick; I did not come to invite virtuous
people, but sinners.'
Once, when John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast, some
people came to him and said, 'Why is it that John's disciples and the
disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?' Jesus said to them
'Can you expect the bridegroom's friends to fast while the bridegroom
is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, there can
be no fasting. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken
away from them, and on that day they will fast.
'No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on to an old coat; if he does, the
patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and leaves a bigger hole.
No one puts new wine into old-wine-skins; if he does, the wine will burst
the skins and then wine and skis are both lost. Fresh skins for new wine!'
One Sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and his disciples, as
they went, began to pluck ears of corn. The Pharisees said to him, 'Look,
you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry and had
nothing to eat? He went into the House of God, in the time of Abiathar
the High Priest, and ate the sacred bread, though no one but a priest is
allowed to eat it, and even gave it to his men.'
He also said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for the sake of man and
not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of Man is sovereign even over
the Sabbath.'
3 On another occasion when he went to synagogue, there was a man in the
congregation who had a withered arm; and they were watching to see
whether Jesus would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they could bring
a charge against him. He said to the man with the withered arm, 'Come and
stand out here.' Then he turned to them: 'Is it permitted to do good or to
do evil on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?' They had nothing to say;
stupidity, he said to the man, 'Stretch out your arm.' He stretched it out
and his arm was restored. But the Pharisees, on leaving the synagogue,
began plotting against him with the partisans of Herod to see how they
could make away with him.
JESUS WENT AWAY to the lake-side with his disciples. Greater numbers
from Galilee, Judaea and Jerusalem, Idumaea and Transjordan, and the
neighbourhod of Tyre and Sidon, heard what he was doing and came to
see him. So he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him, t save him
from being crushed by the crowd. For he cured so many that sick people of
all kinds came crowding upon him to touch him. The unclean spirits too,
when they saw him, would fall at his feet and cry aloud, 'You are the Son of
God'; but he insisted that they should not make him known.
He then went up into the hill-country and called the men he wanted;
and they went and joined him. He appointed twelve as his companions,
whom he would send out to proclaim the Gospel, with a commission to
drive out devils. So he appointed the Twelve: to Simon he gave the name
Peter; then came the sons of Zebedee, James and his brother John, to whom
he gave the name Boanerges, Sons of thunder; then Andrew and Philip and
Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alphaeus
and Thaddeus and Simon, a member of the zealot party, and Judas
Iscariot, the man who betrayed him.
He entered a house; and once more such a crowd collected round them
that they had no chance to eat. When his family heard of this, they set out
to take charge of him; for people were saying that he was out of his mind.
The doctors of the law, too, who had come down from Jerusalem, said
'He is possessed by Beelzebub', and 'He drives out devils by the prince of
devils.' So he called them to come forward, and spoke to them in parables:
'How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand; if a household is divided against itself, that
house will never stand; and if Satan is in rebellion against himself, he is
divided and cannot stand; and that is the end of him.
'On the other hand, no one can break into a strong man's house and
make off with his good unless he has first tied the strong man up; then he
can ransack the house.
'I tell you this: no sin, no slander, is beyond forgiveness for men; but
whoever slanders the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven; he is guilty of
eternal sin.' He said this because they had declared that he was possessed
by an unclean spirit.
Then his mother and brothers arrived, and remaining outside sent
in a message asking him to come out to them. A crowd was sitting round
and word was brought to him: 'Your mother and your brothers are outside
asking for you.' He replied, 'Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?'
And looking round at those who were sitting in the circle about him he said,
'Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is
my brother, my sister, my mother.'
4 ON ANOTHER OCCASION he began to teach by the lake-side. The crowd
that gathered round him was so large that he had to get into a boat on the
lake and there he sat, with the whole crowd on the beach right down
to the water's edge. And he taught them many things by parables.
As he taught he said:
'Listen! A sower went out to sow. And it happened that as he sowed,
some seed fell along the footpath; and the birds came and ate it up. Some
seed fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil, and it sprouted quickly
because it had no depth of earth; but when the sun rose the young corn was
scorched, and as it had no root it withered away. Some seed fell among
thistles; and the thistles shot up and choked the corn, and it yielded no
crop. And some of the seed fell into good soil, where it came up and grew,
and bore fruit; and the yield was thirtyfold, sixtyfold, even a hundredfold.
He added, 'If you have ears to hear, then hear.'
When he was alone, the Twelve and others who were round him ques-
tioned him about the parables. He replied, 'To you the secret of the
kingdom of God has been given; but to those who are outside everything
comes by way of parables, so that (as Scripture says) they may look and
look, but see nothing; they may hear and hear, but understand nothing;
otherwise they might turn to God and be forgiven.'
So he said, 'You do not understand this parable? How then are you to
understand any parables? The sower sows the word. Those along the foot-
path are people in whom the word is sown, but no sooner have they heard
it than Satan comes and carries off the word which has been sown in them.
It is the same with those who receive the seed on rocky ground; as soon as
they hear the word, they accept it with joy, but it strikes no root in them;
they have no staying-power; then, when there is trouble or persecution on
account of the word, they fall away at once. Others again receive the seed
among thistles; they hear the word, but worldly cares and false glamour
of wealth and all kinds of evil desire come in and choke the word, and it
proves barren. And there are those who receive the seed in good soil; they
hear the word and welcome it; and they bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold,
or a hundredfold.'
He said to them, 'Do you bring in the lamp to put it under the meal-tub,
or under the bed? Surely it is brought to be set on the lamp-stand. For
nothing is hidden unless it is to be disclosed, and nothing put under cover
unless it is to come into the open. If you have ears to hear, then hear.'
He also said, 'Take note of what you hear; the measure you give is the
measure you will receive, with something more besides. For the man who
has will be given more, and the man who has not will forfeit even what
he has.'
He said, 'The kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters seed on the land;
he goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning, and the seed sprouts
and grows — how, he does not know. The ground produces a crop by itself,
first the blade, then the ear, then full-grown corn in the ear; but as soon
as the crop is ripe, he plies the sickle, because harvest-time has come.'
He said also, 'How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what
parable shall we describe it? It is like the mustard-seed, which is smaller
than any seed in the ground at its sowing. But once sown, it springs up
and grows taller than any other plant, and forms branches so large that the
birds can settle in its shade.'
With many such parables he would give them his message, so far as they
were able to receive it. He never spoke to them except in parables; but
privately to his disciples he explained everything.
THAT DAY, in the evening, he said to them, 'Let us cross over to the other
side of the lake.' So they left the crowd and took him with them in the
boat where he had been sitting; and there were other boats accompanying
him. A heavy squall came on and the waves broke over the boat until it
was all but swamped. Now he was in the stern asleep on a cushion; they
roused him and said, 'Master, we are sinking! Do you not care?' He awoke,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Hush! Be still!' The wind dropped
and there was dead calm. He said to them, 'Why are you such cowards?
Have you no faith even now?' They were awestruck and said to one
another, 'Who can this be? Even the wind and sea obey him.'
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Dec 20, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC
20