Matthew 8
8
(We have not yet translated 8:1-4. You can read that story in Mark 1:40-44.)
A Roman army boss trusted Jesus properly
5Jesus went to a town called Capernium. There was a Roman army boss there. He was the boss over 100 soldiers. He went to Jesus and strongly asked him for help. 6He said, “Sir, my young work-man is lying in bed at home. He can’t move, and he is hurting a lot.”
7Jesus said, “I will go with you and make him better.”
8But the army boss said to Jesus, “Sir, I’m not good enough for you, so it will not be right for you to go into my house. But you can make him better from right here. You can tell that sickness to stop, and leave my work-man, and then he will get better straight away. 9I know it will happen. You see, I know about bosses. I have a boss over me, and I’m the boss over a lot of soldiers. If I tell a soldier to go somewhere, he goes there. And if I tell one of them to come to me, he comes to me. And if I tell my work-men to do something, they do it. Well, I believe that you are a powerful boss. If you just tell that sickness to go, then my work-man will get better straight away.”
10Jesus heard what that Roman army boss said, and he was very surprised. He said to the people that were following him, “Listen. This man is not one of you Israel mob, but he trusts me more than any of you Israel people.”
11Then Jesus told them about something that will happen one day. He said, “Listen. You know that God picked you Israel mob to be his special people. But one day, a lot of other people will come from everywhere in the world, and they will join God’s family in heaven. God will put on a big dinner there for his family, and these other people will sit down and eat it with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. They are your grand-fathers that lived a long time ago.#Luke 13:29 12But a lot of Israel people will not eat any of it. God will grab them and chuck them out. They will be very upset and angry. They will cry a lot, and they will be so angry that they will bite their teeth together.”#Matthew 22:13; 25:30; Luke 13:28
13Then Jesus said to the army boss, “You can go back home now. You are trusting me to make your work-man better, so I am doing it.” And right then, at that same time, that army boss’s work-man got better.
(We have not yet translated 8:14-17. You can read that story in Mark 1:29-34.)
If we follow Jesus, it might be hard for us
18At another time Jesus saw a big mob of people coming around him, so he told his followers to take him in a boat to the other side of the lake.
19After they got there, a Jewish law teacher went to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I want to be one of your followers. I will go everywhere with you.”
20Jesus said to him, “Wild dogs have places where they can sleep, and wild birds have nests they can sleep in. But I haven’t got a home to lie down and sleep in, even though I’m God’s special man from heaven.”
21There was another man that was already a follower of Jesus. He said to Jesus, “Sir, I will come with you. But my father has died, so let me go home to bury him. After that, I will come with you.”
22Jesus said to him, “No. You come and follow me now. You see, some people are spiritually dead, so they can bury the dead bodies of their own people. But you come and follow me.”
(We have not yet translated 8:23—9:26. You can read those stories in Mark 2:1-22; 4:35-41; 5:1-43.)
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© 2021, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.