26
All the people were fully amazed and began to praise God. They were filled with much respect and said, "Today we have seen amazing things!"
27
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax collector's booth. Jesus said to him, "Follow me!"
28
So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
29
Then Levi gave a big dinner for Jesus at his house. Many tax collectors and other people were eating there, too.
30
But the Pharisees and the men who taught the law for the Pharisees began to complain to Jesus' followers, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"
31
Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick.
32
I have not come to invite good people but sinners to change their hearts and lives."
33
They said to Jesus, "John's followers often give up eatingn for a certain time and pray, just as the Pharisees do. But your followers eat and drink all the time."
34
Jesus said to them, "You cannot make the friends of the bridegroom give up eating while he is still with them.
35
But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will give up eating."
36
Jesus told them this story: "No one takes cloth off a new coat to cover a hole in an old coat. Otherwise, he ruins the new coat, and the cloth from the new coat will not be the same as the old cloth.