Matthew 8
8
Jesus Heals a Sick Man
1When Jesus came down from the hill, great crowds followed him. 2Then a man sick with a harmful skin disease came to Jesus. The man bowed down before him and said, “Lord, you have the power to heal me if you want.”
3Jesus touched the man and said, “I want to heal you. Be healed!” And immediately the man was healed from his skin disease. 4Then Jesus said to him, “Don’t tell anyone about what happened. But go and show yourself to the priest.# The law of Moses said a priest must say when a Jew who had a harmful skin disease was well. And offer the gift that Moses commanded# Read about this in Leviticus 14:1–32. for people who are made well. This will show people that you are healed.”
Jesus Heals a Soldier’s Servant
5Jesus went to the city of Capernaum. When he entered the city, an army officer came to Jesus and begged for help. 6The officer said, “Lord, my servant is at home in bed. He can’t move his body and is in much pain.”
7Jesus said to the officer, “I will go and heal him.”
8The officer answered, “Lord, I am not good enough for you to come into my house. All you need to do is command that my servant be healed, and he will be healed. 9I myself am a man under the authority of other men. And I have soldiers under my command. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes. I tell another soldier, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and my servant obeys me.
10When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. He said to those who were with him, “I tell you the truth. This man has more faith than any other person I have found, even in Israel. 11Many people will come from the east and from the west. They will sit and eat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12And those people who should have the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness. In that place people will cry and grind their teeth with pain.”
13Then Jesus said to the officer, “Go home. Your servant will be healed just as you believed he would.” And at that same time his servant was healed.
Jesus Heals Many People
14Jesus went to Peter’s house. There Jesus saw that Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever. 15Jesus touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she stood up and began to serve Jesus.
16That evening people brought to Jesus many who had demons. Jesus spoke and the demons left them. Jesus healed all the sick. 17He did these things to make come true what Isaiah the prophet said:
“He took our suffering on him.
And he felt our pain for us.” Isaiah 53:4
People Want to Follow Jesus
18When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he told his followers to go to the other side of the lake. 19Then a teacher of the law came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you any place you go.”
20Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes to live in. The birds have nests to live in. But the Son of Man has no place where he can rest his head.”
21Another man, one of Jesus’ followers, said to Jesus, “Lord, let me go and bury my father first.”
22But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the people who are dead bury their own dead.”
Jesus Stops a Storm
23Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. 24A very bad storm arose on the lake. The waves covered the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25The followers went to Jesus and woke him. They said, “Lord, save us! We will drown!”
26Jesus answered, “Why are you afraid? You don’t have enough faith.” Then Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the sea. The wind stopped, and the sea became very calm.
27The men were amazed. They said, “What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons
28Jesus arrived at the other side of the lake in the country of the Gadarene# From Gadara, an area southeast of Lake Galilee. The exact location is uncertain and some Greek copies read “Gergesene”; others read “Gerasene.” people. There, two men came to Jesus. They had demons in them. These men lived in the burial caves. They were so dangerous that people could not use the road by those caves. 29The two men came to Jesus and shouted, “What do you want with us, Son of God? Did you come here to punish us before the right time?”
30Near that place there was a large herd of pigs feeding. 31The demons begged Jesus, “If you make us leave these men, please send us into that herd of pigs.”
32Jesus said to them, “Go!” So the demons left the men and went into the pigs. Then the whole herd of pigs ran down the hill into the lake and were drowned. 33The men who were caring for the pigs ran away and went into town. They told about all of this and what had happened to the men who had demons. 34Then the whole town went out to see Jesus. When they saw him, they begged him to leave their area.
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Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Matthew 8
8
He Carried Our Diseases
1-2Jesus came down the mountain with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in his ears. Then a leper appeared and dropped to his knees before Jesus, praying, “Master, if you want to, you can heal my body.”
3-4Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, “I want to. Be clean.” Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, “Don’t talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done.”
5-6As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said, “Master, my servant is sick. He can’t walk. He’s in terrible pain.”
7Jesus said, “I’ll come and heal him.”
8-9“Oh, no,” said the captain. “I don’t want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine. I’m a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10-12Taken aback, Jesus said, “I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works. This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions—streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God’s kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.”
13Then Jesus turned to the captain and said, “Go. What you believed could happen has happened.” At that moment his servant became well.
14-15By this time they were in front of Peter’s house. On entering, Jesus found Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed, burning up with fever. He touched her hand and the fever was gone. No sooner was she up on her feet than she was fixing dinner for him.
16-17That evening a lot of demon-afflicted people were brought to him. He relieved the inwardly tormented. He cured the bodily ill. He fulfilled Isaiah’s well-known revelation:
He took our illnesses,
He carried our diseases.
Your Business Is Life, Not Death
18-19When Jesus saw that a curious crowd was growing by the minute, he told his disciples to get him out of there to the other side of the lake. As they left, a religion scholar asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said.
20Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.”
21Another follower said, “Master, excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have my father’s funeral to take care of.”
22Jesus refused. “First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life.”
* * *
23-25Then he got in the boat, his disciples with him. The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat—and he was sound asleep! They roused him, pleading, “Master, save us! We’re going down!”
26Jesus reprimanded them. “Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?” Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: “Silence!” The sea became smooth as glass.
27The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. “What’s going on here? Wind and sea stand up and take notice at his command!”
The Madmen and the Pigs
28-31They landed in the country of the Gadarenes and were met by two madmen, victims of demons, coming out of the cemetery. The men had terrorized the region for so long that no one considered it safe to walk down that stretch of road anymore. Seeing Jesus, the madmen screamed out, “What business do you have giving us a hard time? You’re the Son of God! You weren’t supposed to show up here yet!” Off in the distance a herd of pigs was grazing and rooting. The evil spirits begged Jesus, “If you kick us out of these men, let us live in the pigs.”
32-34Jesus said, “Go ahead, but get out of here!” Crazed, the pigs stampeded over a cliff into the sea and drowned. Scared to death, the swineherds bolted. They told everyone back in town what had happened to the madmen and the pigs. Those who heard about it were angry about the drowned pigs. A mob formed and demanded that Jesus get out and not come back.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.