25
When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit. “Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak,” he said. “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!”
26
Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran through the crowd as people said, “He’s dead.”
27
But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up.
28
Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?”
29
Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer. ”
30
Leaving that region, they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there,
31
for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.”
32
They didn’t understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.
33
After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?”
34
But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.
35
He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”