9 So he stepped into a boat, crossed the lake again and came to his own town. ² Some people brought him a paralyzed man lying on a mattress. When Yeshua saw their trust, he said to the paralyzed man, “Courage, son! Your sins are forgiven.” ³ On seeing this, some of the Torah-teachers said among themselves, “This man is blaspheming!” ⁴ Yeshua, knowing what they were thinking, said, “Why are you entertaining evil thoughts in your hearts? ⁵ Tell me, which is easier to say — ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Get up and walk’? ⁶ But look! I will prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” He then said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your mattress, and go home!” ⁷ And the man got up and went home. ⁸ When the crowds saw this, they were awestruck and said a b’rakhah to God the Giver of such authority to human beings.

⁹ As Yeshua passed on from there he spotted a tax-collector named Mattityahu sitting in his collection booth. He said to him, “Follow me!” and he got up and followed him.

¹⁰ While Yeshua was in the house eating, many tax-collectors and sinners came and joined him and his talmidim at the meal. ¹¹ When the P’rushim saw this, they said to his talmidim, “Why does your rabbi eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” ¹² But Yeshua heard the question and answered, “The ones who need a doctor aren’t the healthy but the sick. ¹³ As for you, go and learn what this means: ‘I want compassion rather than animal-sacrifices.’^[a] For I didn’t come to call the ‘righteous,’ but sinners!”

¹⁴ Next, Yochanan’s talmidim came to him and asked, “Why is it that we and the P’rushim fast frequently, but your talmidim don’t fast at all?” ¹⁵ Yeshua said to them, “Can wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; then they will fast. ¹⁶ No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunk cloth, because the patch tears away from the coat and leaves a worse hole. ¹⁷ Nor do people put new wine in old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine spills and the wineskins are ruined. No, they pour new wine into freshly prepared wineskins, and in this way both are preserved.”