The Life of Jesus

Then a cloud enveloped them; and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Yeshua.

As they came down the mountain, he warned them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

So they kept the matter to themselves; but they continued asking each other, "What is this `rising from the dead'?"

They also asked him, "Why do the Torah-teachers say that Eliyahu has to come first?"

"Eliyahu will indeed come first," he answered, "and he will restore everything. Nevertheless, why is it written in the Tanakh that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?

There's more to it: I tell you that Eliyahu has come, and they did whatever they pleased to him, just as the Tanakh says about him."

When they got back to the talmidim, they saw a large crowd around them and some Torah-teachers arguing with them.

As soon as the crowd saw him, they were surprised and ran out to greet him.

He asked them, "What's the discussion about?"

One of the crowd gave him the answer: "Rabbi, I brought my son to you because he has an evil spirit in him that makes him unable to talk.

Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground -- he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth and becomes stiff all over. I asked your talmidim to drive the spirit out, but they couldn't do it."

"People without any trust!" he responded. "How long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me!"

They brought the boy to him; and as soon as the spirit saw him, it threw the boy into a convulsion.

Yeshua asked the boy's father, "How long has this been happening to him?" "Ever since childhood," he said;

"and it often tries to kill him by throwing him into the fire or into the water. But if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us!"

Yeshua said to him, "What do you mean, `if you can'? Everything is possible to someone who has trust!"

Instantly the father of the child exclaimed, "I do trust -- help my lack of trust!"

When Yeshua saw that the crowd was closing in on them, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and dumb spirit! I command you: come out of him, and never go back into him again!"

Shrieking and throwing the boy into a violent fit, it came out. The boy lay there like a corpse, so that most of the people said he was dead.

But Yeshua took him by the hand and raised him to his feet, and he stood up.

After Yeshua had gone indoors, his talmidim asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

He said to them "This is the kind of spirit that can be driven out only by prayer."

After leaving that place, they went on through the Galil. Yeshua didn't want anyone to know,

because he was teaching his talmidim. He told them, "The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men who will put him to death; but after he has been killed, three days later he will rise."