Bible in 90 Days

11 Open your doors, O Lebanon, to judgment.^[a] You will be destroyed as though by fire raging through your forests. ² Weep, O cypress trees, for all the ruined cedars; the tallest and most beautiful of them are fallen. Cry in fear, you oaks of Bashan, as you watch the thickest forests felled. ³ Listen to the wailing of Israel’s leaders—all these evil shepherds—for their wealth is gone. Hear the young lions roaring—the princes are weeping, for their glorious Jordan Valley lies in ruins.

⁴ Then said the Lord my God to me, “Go and take a job as shepherd of a flock being fattened for the butcher. ⁵ This will illustrate the way my people have been bought and slain by wicked leaders, who go unpunished. ‘Thank God, now I am rich!’ say those who have betrayed them—their own shepherds have sold them without mercy. ⁶ And I won’t spare them either,” says the Lord, “for I will let them fall into the clutches of their own wicked leaders, and they will slay them. They shall turn the land into a wilderness, and I will not protect it from them.”

⁷ So I took two shepherd’s staffs, naming one Grace and the other Union, and I fed the flock as I had been told to do. ⁸ And I got rid of their three evil shepherds in a single month. But I became impatient with these sheep—this nation—and they hated me too.

⁹ So I told them, “I won’t be your shepherd any longer. If you die, you die; if you are killed, I don’t care. Go ahead and destroy yourselves!”

¹⁰ And I took my staff called Grace and snapped it in two, showing that I had broken my contract to lead and protect them. ¹¹ That was the end of the agreement. Then those who bought and sold sheep, who were watching, realized that God was telling them something through what I did.

¹² And I said to their leaders, “If you like, give me my pay, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.”

So they counted out thirty little silver coins^[b] as my wages.

¹³ And the Lord told me, “Use it to buy a field from the pottery makers^[c]—this magnificent sum they value you at!”

So I took the thirty coins and threw them into the Temple for the pottery makers. ¹⁴ Then I broke my other staff, “Union,” to show that the bond of unity between Judah and Israel was broken.

¹⁵ Then the Lord told me to go again and get a job as a shepherd; this time I was to act the part of a worthless, wicked shepherd.

¹⁶ And he said to me, “This illustrates how I will give this nation a shepherd who will not care for the dying ones, nor look after the young, nor heal the broken bones, nor feed the healthy ones, nor carry the lame that cannot walk; instead, he will eat the fat ones, even tearing off their feet. ¹⁷ Woe to this worthless shepherd who doesn’t care for the flock. God’s sword will cut his arm and pierce through his right eye; his arm will become useless and his right eye blinded.”

12 This is the fate of Israel, as pronounced by the Lord, who stretched out the heavens, laid the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him:

² “I will make Jerusalem and Judah like a cup of poison to all the nearby nations that send their armies to surround Jerusalem. ³ Jerusalem will be a heavy stone burdening the world. And though all the nations of the earth unite in an attempt to move her, they will all be crushed.

⁴ “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will bewilder the armies drawn up against her, and make fools of them, for I will watch over the people of Judah, but blind all her enemies.

⁵ “And the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The people of Jerusalem have found strength in the Lord Almighty, their God.’

⁶ “In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a little fire that sets the forest aflame—like a burning match among the sheaves; they will burn up all the neighboring nations right and left, while Jerusalem stands unmoved. ⁷ The Lord will give victory to the rest of Judah first, before Jerusalem, so that the people of Jerusalem and the royal line of David won’t be filled with pride at their success.

⁸ “The Lord will defend the people of Jerusalem; the weakest among them will be as mighty as King David! And the royal line will be as God, like the Angel of the Lord who goes before them! ⁹ For my plan is to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “Then I will pour out the spirit of grace and prayer on all the people of Jerusalem. They will look on him they pierced, and mourn for him as for an only son, and grieve bitterly for him as for an oldest child who died. ¹¹ The sorrow and mourning in Jerusalem at that time will be even greater than the grievous mourning for the godly King Josiah,^[d] who was killed in the valley of Megiddo.

^12-14 “All of Israel will weep in profound sorrow. The whole nation will be bowed down with universal grief—king, prophet, priest, and people. Each family will go into private mourning, husbands and wives apart, to face their sorrow alone.

13 “At that time a Fountain will be opened to the people of Israel and Jerusalem, a Fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and defilement.”

² And the Lord Almighty declares, “In that day I will get rid of every vestige of idol worship throughout the land, so that even the names of the idols will be forgotten. All false prophets and fortune-tellers will be wiped out, ³ and if anyone begins false prophecy again, his own father and mother will slay him! ‘You must die,’ they will tell him, ‘for you are prophesying lies in the name of the Lord.’

⁴ “No one will be boasting then of his prophetic gift! No one will wear prophet’s clothes to try to fool the people then.

⁵ “‘No,’ he will say. ‘I am not a prophet; I am a farmer. The soil has been my livelihood from my earliest youth.’

⁶ “And if someone asks, ‘Then what are these scars on your chest and your back?’^[e] he will say, ‘I got into a brawl at the home of a friend!’

⁷ “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, the man who is my associate and equal,” says the Lord Almighty. “Strike down the Shepherd and the sheep will scatter, but I will come back and comfort and care for the lambs. ⁸ Two-thirds of all the nation of Israel will be cut off and die,^[f] but a third will be left in the land. ⁹ I will bring the third that remain through the fire and make them pure, as gold and silver are refined and purified by fire. They will call upon my name and I will hear them; I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”

14 ^1-2 Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming soon! On that day the Lord will gather together the nations to fight Jerusalem; the city will be taken, the houses rifled, the loot divided, the women raped; half the population will be taken away as slaves, and half will be left in what remains of the city.

³ Then the Lord will go out fully armed for war, to fight against those nations. ⁴ That day his feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will split apart, making a very wide valley running from east to west, for half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south. ⁵ You will escape through that valley, for it will reach across to the city gate.^[g] Yes, you will escape as your people did long centuries ago from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and the Lord my God shall come, and all his saints and angels with him.

⁶ The sun and moon and stars will no longer shine,^{[h] 7} yet there will be continuous day! Only the Lord knows how! There will be no normal day and night—at evening time it will still be light. ⁸ Life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean, flowing continuously both in winter and in summer.

⁹ And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day there shall be one Lord—his name alone will be worshiped. ¹⁰ All the land from Geba (the northern border of Judah) to Rimmon (the southern border) will become one vast plain, but Jerusalem will be on an elevated site, covering the area all the way from the Gate of Benjamin over to the site of the old gate, then to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. ¹¹ And Jerusalem shall be inhabited, safe at last, never again to be cursed and destroyed.

¹² And the Lord will send a plague on all the people who fought Jerusalem. They will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away; their eyes will shrivel in their sockets, and their tongues will decay in their mouths.

¹³ They will be seized with terror, panic-stricken from the Lord, and will fight against each other in hand-to-hand combat. ¹⁴ All Judah will be fighting at Jerusalem.^[i] The wealth of all the neighboring nations will be confiscated—great quantities of gold and silver and fine clothing. ¹⁵ (This same plague will strike the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in the enemy camp.)

¹⁶ In the end, those who survive the plague will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, to celebrate a time of thanksgiving.^{[j] 17} And any nation anywhere in all the world that refuses to come to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, will have no rain. ¹⁸ But if Egypt refuses to come, God will punish her with some other plague. ¹⁹ And so Egypt and the other nations will all be punished if they refuse to come.

²⁰ In that day the bells on the horses will have written on them, “These Are Holy Property”;^[k] and the trash cans in the Temple of the Lord will be as sacred as the bowls beside the altar. ²¹ In fact, every container in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord Almighty; all who come to worship may use any of them free of charge to boil their sacrifices in; there will be no more grasping traders in the Temple of the Lord Almighty!

1 Here is the Lord’s message to Israel, given through the prophet Malachi:

^2-3 “I have loved you very deeply,” says the Lord.

But you retort, “Really? When was this?”

And the Lord replies, “I showed my love for you by loving your father, Jacob. I didn’t need to. I even rejected his very own brother, Esau, and destroyed Esau’s mountains and inheritance, to give it to the jackals of the desert. ⁴ And if his descendants should say, ‘We will rebuild the ruins,’ then the Lord Almighty will say, ‘Try to if you like, but I will destroy it again,’ for their country is named ‘The Land of Wickedness,’ and their people are called ‘Those Whom God Does Not Forgive.’”

⁵ O Israel, lift your eyes to see what God is doing all around the world; then you will say, “Truly, the Lord’s great power goes far beyond our borders!”

⁶ “A son honors his father, a servant honors his master. I am your Father and Master, yet you don’t honor me, O priests, but you despise my name.”

“Who? Us?” you say. “When did we ever despise your name?”

⁷ “When you offer polluted sacrifices on my altar.”

“Polluted sacrifices? When have we ever done a thing like that?”

“Every time you say, ‘Don’t bother bringing anything very valuable to offer to God!’ ⁸ You tell the people, ‘Lame animals are all right to offer on the altar of the Lord—yes, even the sick and the blind ones.’ And you claim this isn’t evil? Try it on your governor sometime—give him gifts like that—and see how pleased he is!

⁹ “‘God have mercy on us,’ you recite; ‘God be gracious to us!’ But when you bring that kind of gift, why should he show you any favor at all?

¹⁰ “Oh, to find one priest among you who would shut the doors and refuse this kind of sacrifice! I have no pleasure in you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will not accept your offerings.

¹¹ “But my name will be honored by the Gentiles from morning till night. All around the world they will offer sweet incense and pure offerings in honor of my name. For my name shall be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹² “But you dishonor it, saying that my altar is not important and encouraging people to bring cheap, sick animals to offer to me on it.

¹³ “You say, ‘Oh, it’s too difficult to serve the Lord and do what he asks.’ And you turn up your noses at the rules he has given you to obey. Think of it! Stolen animals, lame and sick—as offerings to God! Should I accept such offerings as these?” asks the Lord. ¹⁴ “Cursed is that man who promises a fine ram from his flock and substitutes a sick one to sacrifice to God. For I am a Great King,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be mightily revered among the Gentiles.”

2 ^1-2 Listen, you priests, to this warning from the Lord Almighty:

“If you don’t change your ways and give glory to my name, then I will send terrible punishment upon you, and instead of giving you blessings as I would like to, I will turn on you with curses. Indeed, I have cursed you already because you haven’t taken seriously the things that are most important to me.

³ “Take note that I will rebuke your children; I will spread on your faces the manure of these animals you offer me and throw you out like dung. ⁴ Then at last you will know it was I who sent you this warning to return to the laws I gave your father Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁵ “The purpose of these laws was to give him life and peace, to be a means of showing his respect and awe for me by keeping them. ⁶ He passed on to the people all the truth he got from me. He did not lie or cheat; he walked with me, living a good and righteous life, and turned many from their lives of sin.

⁷ “Priests’ lips should flow with the knowledge of God so the people will learn God’s laws. The priests are the messengers of the Lord Almighty, and men should come to them for guidance. ⁸ But not to you! For you have left God’s paths. Your ‘guidance’ has caused many to stumble in sin. You have distorted the covenant of Levi and made it into a grotesque parody,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁹ “Therefore, I have made you contemptible in the eyes of all the people; for you have not obeyed me, but you let your favorites break the law without rebuke.”

¹⁰ We are children of the same father, Abraham, all created by the same God. And yet we are faithless to each other, violating the covenant of our fathers! ¹¹ In Judah, in Israel, and in Jerusalem, there is treachery, for the men of Judah have defiled God’s holy and beloved Temple by marrying heathen women who worship idols. ¹² May the Lord cut off from his covenant every last man, whether priest or layman, who has done this thing!

¹³ Yet you cover the altar with your tears because the Lord doesn’t pay attention to your offerings anymore, and you receive no blessing from him. ¹⁴ “Why has God abandoned us?” you cry. I’ll tell you why; it is because the Lord has seen your treachery in divorcing your wives who have been faithful to you through the years, the companions you promised to care for and keep. ¹⁵ You were united to your wife by the Lord. In God’s wise plan, when you married, the two of you became one person in his sight. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. Therefore, guard your passions! Keep faith with the wife of your youth.

¹⁶ For the Lord, the God of Israel, says he hates divorce and cruel men. Therefore, control your passions—let there be no divorcing of your wives.

¹⁷ You have wearied the Lord with your words.

“Wearied him?” you ask in fake surprise. “How have we wearied him?”

By saying that evil is good, that it pleases the Lord! Or by saying that God won’t punish us—he doesn’t care.

3 “Listen: I will send my messenger before me to prepare the way. And then the One^[l] you are looking for will come suddenly to his Temple—the Messenger of God’s promises, to bring you great joy. Yes, he is surely coming,” says the Lord Almighty. ² “But who can live when he appears? Who can endure his coming? For he is like a blazing fire refining precious metal, and he can bleach the dirtiest garments! ³ Like a refiner of silver he will sit and closely watch as the dross is burned away. He will purify the Levites, the ministers of God, refining them like gold or silver, so that they will do their work for God with pure hearts. ⁴ Then once more the Lord will enjoy the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did before. ⁵ At that time my punishments will be quick and certain; I will move swiftly against wicked men who trick the innocent, against adulterers and liars, against all those who cheat their hired hands, who oppress widows and orphans, or defraud strangers, and do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

⁶ “For I am the Lord—I do not change. That is why you are not already utterly destroyed, for my mercy endures forever.^[m]

⁷ “Though you have scorned my laws from earliest time, yet you may still return to me,” says the Lord Almighty. “Come and I will forgive you.

“But you say, ‘We have never even gone away!’

⁸ “Will a man rob God? Surely not! And yet you have robbed me.

“‘What do you mean? When did we ever rob you?’

“You have robbed me of the tithes and offerings due me. ⁹ And so the awesome curse of God is cursing you, for your whole nation has been robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there will be food enough in my Temple; if you do, I will open up the windows of heaven for you and pour out a blessing so great you won’t have room enough to take it in!

“Try it! Let me prove it to you! ¹¹ Your crops will be large, for I will guard them from insects and plagues. Your grapes won’t shrivel away before they ripen,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹² “And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land sparkling with happiness. These are the promises of the Lord Almighty.

¹³ “Your attitude toward me has been proud and arrogant,” says the Lord.

“But you say, ‘What do you mean? What have we said that we shouldn’t?’

^14-15 “Listen; you have said, ‘It is foolish to worship God and obey him. What good does it do to obey his laws, and to sorrow and mourn for our sins? From now on, as far as we’re concerned, “Blessed are the arrogant.” For those who do evil shall prosper, and those who dare God to punish them shall get off scot-free.’”

¹⁶ Then those who feared and loved the Lord spoke often of him to each other. And he had a Book of Remembrance drawn up in which he recorded the names of those who feared him and loved to think about him.

¹⁷ “They shall be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in that day when I make up my jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares an obedient and dutiful son. ¹⁸ Then you will see the difference between God’s treatment of good men and bad, between those who serve him and those who don’t.

4 “Watch now,” the Lord Almighty declares, “the day of judgment is coming, burning like a furnace. The proud and wicked will be burned up like straw; like a tree, they will be consumed—roots and all.

² “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. ³ Then you will tread upon the wicked as ashes underfoot,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁴ “Remember to obey the laws I gave all Israel through Moses my servant on Mount Horeb.

⁵ “See, I will send you another prophet like Elijah^[n] before the coming of the great and dreadful judgment day of God. ⁶ His preaching will bring fathers and children together again, to be of one mind and heart, for they will know that if they do not repent, I will come and utterly destroy their land.”

1 These are the ancestors of Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David and of Abraham:

¹⁷ These are fourteen^[o] of the generations from Abraham to King David; and fourteen from King David’s time to the exile; and fourteen from the exile to Christ.

¹⁸ These are the facts concerning the birth of Jesus Christ: His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But while she was still a virgin she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Then Joseph, her fiancé,^[p] being a man of stern principle, decided to break the engagement but to do it quietly, as he didn’t want to publicly disgrace her.

²⁰ As he lay awake^[q] considering this, he fell into a dream, and saw an angel standing beside him. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “don’t hesitate to take Mary as your wife! For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a Son, and you shall name him Jesus (meaning ‘Savior’), for he will save his people from their sins. ²² This will fulfill God’s message through his prophets—

²³ ‘Listen! The virgin shall conceive a child! She shall give birth to a Son, and he shall be called “Emmanuel” (meaning “God is with us”).’”

²⁴ When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel commanded and brought Mary home to be his wife, ²⁵ but she remained a virgin until her Son was born; and Joseph named him “Jesus.”

2 Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem, in Judea, during the reign of King Herod.

At about that time some astrologers from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, ² “Where is the newborn King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in far-off eastern lands and have come to worship him.”

³ King Herod was deeply disturbed by their question, and all Jerusalem was filled with rumors.^{[r] 4} He called a meeting of the Jewish religious leaders.

“Did the prophets tell us where the Messiah would be born?” he asked.

⁵ “Yes, in Bethlehem,” they said, “for this is what the prophet Micah^[s] wrote:

⁶ ‘O little town of Bethlehem, you are not just an unimportant Judean village, for a Governor shall rise from you to rule my people Israel.’”

⁷ Then Herod sent a private message to the astrologers, asking them to come to see him; at this meeting he found out from them the exact time when they first saw the star. Then he told them, ⁸ “Go to Bethlehem and search for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him too!”

⁹ After this interview the astrologers started out again. And look! The star appeared to them again, standing over Bethlehem.^{[t] 10} Their joy knew no bounds!

¹¹ Entering the house where the baby and Mary, his mother, were, they threw themselves down before him, worshiping. Then they opened their presents and gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹² But when they returned to their own land, they didn’t go through Jerusalem to report to Herod, for God had warned them in a dream to go home another way.

¹³ After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up and flee to Egypt with the baby and his mother,” the angel said, “and stay there until I tell you to return, for King Herod is going to try to kill the child.” ¹⁴ That same^[u] night he left for Egypt with Mary and the baby, ¹⁵ and stayed there until King Herod’s death. This fulfilled the prophet’s prediction,

“I have called my Son from Egypt.”^[v]

¹⁶ Herod was furious when he learned that the astrologers had disobeyed him. Sending soldiers to Bethlehem, he ordered them to kill every baby boy two years old and under, both in the town and on the nearby farms, for the astrologers had told him the star first appeared to them two years before. ¹⁷ This brutal action of Herod’s fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah,

¹⁹ When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and told him, ²⁰ “Get up and take the baby and his mother back to Israel, for those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”

²¹ So he returned immediately to Israel with Jesus and his mother. ²² But on the way he was frightened to learn that the new king was Herod’s son, Archelaus. Then, in another dream, he was warned not to go to Judea, so they went to Galilee instead ²³ and lived in Nazareth. This fulfilled the prediction of the prophets concerning the Messiah,

“He shall be called a Nazarene.”

3 While they were living in Nazareth,^[x] John the Baptist began preaching out in the Judean wilderness. His constant theme was, ² “Turn from your sins . . . turn to God . . . for the Kingdom of Heaven is coming soon.”^{[y] 3} Isaiah the prophet had told about John’s ministry centuries before! He had written,

“I hear^[z] a shout from the wilderness, ‘Prepare a road for the Lord—straighten out the path where he will walk.’”

⁴ John’s clothing was woven from camel’s hair and he wore a leather belt; his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People from Jerusalem and from all over the Jordan Valley, and, in fact, from every section of Judea went out to the wilderness to hear him preach, ⁶ and when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees^[aa] and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them.

“You sons of snakes!” he warned. “Who said that you could escape the coming wrath of God? ⁸ Before being baptized, prove that you have turned from sin by doing worthy deeds. ⁹ Don’t try to get by as you are, thinking, ‘We are safe for we are Jews—descendants of Abraham.’ That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into Jews!^[ab]

¹⁰ “And even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised to chop down every unproductive tree. They will be chopped and burned.

¹¹ “With water^[ac] I baptize those who repent of their sins; but someone else is coming, far greater than I am, so great that I am not worthy to carry his shoes! He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹² He will separate the chaff from the grain, burning the chaff with never-ending fire and storing away the grain.”

¹³ Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized there by John. ¹⁴ John didn’t want to do it.

“This isn’t proper,” he said. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you.”

¹⁵ But Jesus said, “Please do it, for I must do all that is right.”^[ad] So then John baptized him.

¹⁶ After his baptism, as soon as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God coming down in the form of a dove. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, and I am wonderfully pleased with him.”

4 Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, to be tempted there by Satan. ² For forty days and forty nights he ate nothing and became very hungry. ³ Then Satan tempted him to get food by changing stones into loaves of bread.

“It will prove you are the Son of God,” he said.

⁴ But Jesus told him, “No! For the Scriptures tell us that bread won’t feed men’s souls: obedience to every word of God is what we need.”

⁵ Then Satan took him to Jerusalem to the roof of the Temple. ⁶ “Jump off,” he said, “and prove you are the Son of God; for the Scriptures declare, ‘God will send his angels to keep you from harm,’ . . . they will prevent you from smashing on the rocks below.”

⁷ Jesus retorted, “It also says not to put the Lord your God to a foolish test!”

⁸ Next Satan took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him the nations of the world and all their glory. ⁹ “I’ll give it all to you,” he said, “if you will only kneel and worship me.”

¹⁰ “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “The Scriptures say, ‘Worship only the Lord God. Obey only him.’”

¹¹ Then Satan went away, and angels came and cared for Jesus.

^12-13 When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he left Judea and returned home^[ae] to Nazareth in Galilee; but soon he moved to Capernaum, beside the Lake of Galilee, close to Zebulun and Naphtali. ¹⁴ This fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy:

^15-16 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, beside the lake, and the countryside beyond the Jordan River, and Upper Galilee where so many foreigners live—there the people who sat in darkness have seen a great Light; they sat in the land of death, and the Light broke through upon them.”^[af]

¹⁷ From then on, Jesus began to preach, “Turn from sin and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”^[ag]

¹⁸ One day as he was walking along the beach beside the Lake of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—out in a boat^[ah] fishing with a net, for they were commercial fishermen.

¹⁹ Jesus called out, “Come along with me and I will show you how to fish for the souls of men!” ²⁰ And they left their nets at once and went with him.

²¹ A little farther up the beach he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their nets; and he called to them to come too. ²² At once they stopped their work and, leaving their father behind, went with him.

²³ Jesus traveled all through Galilee teaching in the Jewish synagogues, everywhere preaching the Good News about the Kingdom of Heaven. And he healed every kind of sickness and disease. ²⁴ The report of his miracles spread far beyond the borders of Galilee so that sick folk were soon coming to be healed from as far away as Syria. And whatever their illness and pain, or if they were possessed by demons, or were insane, or paralyzed—he healed them all. ²⁵ Enormous crowds followed him wherever he went—people from Galilee, and the Ten Cities, and Jerusalem, and from all over Judea, and even from across the Jordan River.