The Life of Jesus

Shim`on's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever, and they told Yeshua about her.

He came, took her by the hand and lifted her onto her feet. The fever left her, and she began helping them.

That evening after sundown, they brought to Yeshua all who were ill or held in the power of demons,

and the whole town came crowding around the door.

He healed many who were ill with various diseases and expelled many demons, but he did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew who he was.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Yeshua got up, left, went away to a lonely spot and stayed there praying.

But Shim`on and those with him went after him;

and when they found him, they said, "Everybody is looking for you."

He answered, "Let's go somewhere else -- to the other villages around here. I have to proclaim the message there too -- in fact this is why I came out."

So he traveled all through the Galil, preaching in their synagogues and expelling demons.

A man afflicted with tzara`at came to Yeshua and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."

Moved with pity, Yeshua reached out his hand, touched him and said to him, "I am willing! Be cleansed!"

Instantly the tzara`at left him, and he was cleansed.

Yeshua sent him away with this stern warning:

"See to it that you tell no one; instead, as a testimony to the people, go and let the cohen examine you, and offer for your cleansing what Moshe commanded."

But he went out and began spreading the news, talking freely about it; so that Yeshua could no longer enter a town openly but stayed out in the country, where people continued coming to him from all around.

After a while, Yeshua returned to K'far-Nachum. The word spread that he was back,

and so many people gathered around the house that there was no longer any room, not even in front of the door. While he was preaching the message to them,

four men came to him carrying a paralyzed man.

They could not get near Yeshua because of the crowd, so they stripped the roof over the place where he was, made an opening, and lowered the stretcher with the paralytic lying on it.

Seeing their trust, Yeshua said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Some Torah-teachers sitting there thought to themselves,

"How can this fellow say such a thing? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins except God?"

But immediately Yeshua, perceiving in his spirit what they were thinking, said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?

Which is easier to say to the paralyzed man? `Your sins are forgiven'? or `Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk'?