Daily Gospel Plan

¹He entered a synagogue again; and a man was there whose hand was withered.

²And they were watching Him closely to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.

³He *said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!”

⁴And He *said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent.

⁵After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

⁶The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might put Him to death.

⁷Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a large multitude from Galilee followed, and also from Judea,

⁸and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard about everything that He was doing and came to Him.

⁹And He told His disciples to see that a boat would be ready for Him because of the masses, so that they would not crowd Him;

¹⁰for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had diseases pushed in around Him in order to touch Him.

¹¹And whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!”

¹²And He strongly warned them not to reveal who He was.

¹³And He *went up on the mountain and *summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him.

¹⁴And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

¹⁵and to have authority to cast out the demons.

¹⁶And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter),

¹⁷James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”);

¹⁸and Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot;

¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.

²⁰And He *came home, and the crowd *gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.

²¹And when His own people heard about this, they came out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”

²²The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

²³And so He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan?

²⁴And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

²⁵If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, buthe is finished!

²⁷But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.

²⁸“Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons and daughters of men, and whatever blasphemies they commit;

²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—

³⁰because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

³¹Then His mother and His brothers *came, and while standing outside they sent word to Him, calling for Him.

³²And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they *said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.”

³³Answering them, He *said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”

³⁴And looking around at those who were sitting around Him, He *said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!

³⁵For whoever does the will of God, this is My brother, and sister, and mother.”

¹Again He began to teach by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat on the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land.

²And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching,

³“Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow;

⁴as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.

⁵Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil.

⁶And when the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

⁷Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.

⁸Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.”

⁹And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear,let him hear.”

¹⁰As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve disciples, began asking Him about the parables.

¹¹And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those who are outside, everything comes in parables,

¹²so that WHILE SEEING THEY MAY SEE, AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR, AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND IT WOULD BE FORGIVEN THEM.”

¹³And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?

¹⁴The sower sows the word.

¹⁵These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

¹⁶And in a similar way these are the ones sown with seed on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;

¹⁷and yet they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution occurs because of the word, immediately theyfall away.

¹⁸And others are the ones sown with seed among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word,

¹⁹but the worries of theworld, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter and choke the word, and itbecomes unfruitful.

²⁰And those are the ones sown with seed on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.”

²¹And He was saying to them, “A lamp is not brought to be put under abasket, or under a bed, is it? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand?

²²For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.

²³If anyone has ears to hear,let him hear.”

²⁴And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to.By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.

²⁵For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

²⁶And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;

²⁷and he goes to bed at night and gets up daily, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know.

²⁸The soil produces crops by itself; first the stalk, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.

²⁹Now when the crop permits, he immediatelyputs in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

³⁰And He was saying, “How shall wepicture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?

³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is the smallest of all the seeds that are upon the soil,

³²yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants, and forms large branches, with the result that THE BIRDS OF THE SKY can NEST UNDER its shade.”

³³And with many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to understand it;

³⁴and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples.

³⁵On that day, when evening came, He *said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.”

³⁶After dismissing the crowd, they *took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him.

³⁷And a fierce gale of wind *developed, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling with water.

³⁸And yet Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they *woke Him and *said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

³⁹And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

⁴⁰And He said to them, “Why are youafraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who, then, is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”