Mark 3 - 4 — Legacy Standard Bible

Jesus Heals a Man on the Sabbath

3^aAnd He ^bentered again into a synagogue; and a man was there with a withered hand. ²^aAnd they were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, ^bso that they might accuse Him. ³And He *said to the man with the withered hand, “¹Get up and come forward!” ⁴And He *said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. ⁵And after ^alooking 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. ⁶And the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel together with the ^aHerodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.

⁷^aAnd Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and ^ba great multitude from Galilee followed; and from Judea, ⁸and from Jerusalem, and from ^aIdumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of ^bTyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him. ⁹^aAnd He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; ¹⁰for He had ^ahealed many, with the result that all those who had ^bafflictions pressed around Him in order to ^ctouch Him. ¹¹And whenever the unclean spirits were seeing Him, they would fall down before Him and cry out, saying, “You are ^athe Son of God!” ¹²And He ^aearnestly warned them not to ¹tell who He was.

Jesus Appoints the Twelve

¹³And He *went up on ^athe mountain and *^bsummoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. ¹⁴And He appointed twelve ¹(whom He also named apostles) to be with Him and to send them out to preach, ¹⁵and to have authority to cast out the demons. ¹⁶And He appointed the twelve: ^aSimon (to whom He gave the name Peter), ¹⁷and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”); ¹⁸and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the ¹Zealot; ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.

²⁰And He *came ¹^,^ahome, and the ^bcrowd *gathered again, ^cso that they could not even eat ²a meal. ²¹And when ^aHis own ¹people heard this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “^bHe has lost His senses.” ²²And the scribes who came down ^afrom Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by ¹^,^bBeelzebul,” and “^cHe casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” ²³^aAnd He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in ^bparables, “How can ^cSatan cast out Satan? ²⁴“And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵“And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶“And if ^aSatan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but ¹he is finished! ²⁷“^aBut no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.

²⁸“^aTruly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; ²⁹but ^awhoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

³¹^aThen His mother and His brothers *arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him, calling Him. ³²And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they *said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” ³³And answering them, He *said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” ³⁴And looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He *said, “^aBehold My mother and My brothers! ³⁵“For whoever ^adoes the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

The Parable of the Sower

4^aAnd He began to teach again ^bby the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that ^cHe got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. ²And He was teaching them many things in ^aparables, and was saying to them in His teaching, ³“Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; ⁴and it happened that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵“And other 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. ⁶“And after the sun rose, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. ⁷“And other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no ¹crop. ⁸“And other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they were yielding a ¹crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” ⁹And He was saying, “^aHe who has ears to hear, ¹let him hear.”

¹⁰And when He was alone, ¹His followers, along with the twelve, 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 to ^athose who are outside, everything comes ^bin parables, ¹²so that ^awhile seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest they return and be forgiven.”

The Parable of the Sower Explained

¹³^aAnd He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴“The sower sows the word. ¹⁵“And these are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown: when they hear, immediately ^aSatan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. ¹⁶“And in a similar way, these are the ones being sown on the rocky places: those who, when hearing the word, immediately receive it with joy; ¹⁷and they have no root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they ¹fall away. ¹⁸“And others are those being sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, ¹⁹but the worries of ^athe ¹world, and the ^bdeceitfulness of riches, and the desires for anything else enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰“And those are the ones which were sown on the good soil: they who hear the word and accept it and ^aare bearing fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

²¹And He was saying to them, “^aIs a lamp brought to be put under a ¹basket or under a bed? Is it not to be put on the lampstand? ²²“^aFor nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light. ²³“^aIf anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” ²⁴And He was saying to them, “Beware what you listen to. ¹^,^aBy your standard of measure it will be measured to you, and more will be given to you. ²⁵“^aFor whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”

The Parable of the Seed

²⁶And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; ²⁷and he sleeps and rises, night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. ²⁸“The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. ²⁹“But when the grain ¹is ripe, he immediately ²^,^aputs in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

³⁰^aAnd He was saying, “How shall we ^bcompare the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? ³¹“It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is ¹smallest of all the seeds that are upon the soil, ³²yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes ¹largest of all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that ^athe birds of the ²air can nest under its shade.”

³³And with many such parables He was speaking the word to them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴and He was not speaking to them ^awithout a parable; but He was ^bexplaining everything privately to His own disciples.

Jesus Calms a Storm

³⁵^aAnd on that day, when evening came, He *said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶¹And leaving the crowd, they *took Him along with them ^ain the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. ³⁷And a great windstorm *arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling up. ³⁸And Jesus Himself was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion; and they *got Him up and *said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹And He woke up and ^arebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still.” And the wind died down and ¹it became ²perfectly calm. ⁴⁰And He said to them, “Why are you so cowardly? ^aDo you still have no faith?” ⁴¹And they became ¹very afraid and were saying to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”