Luke 5:27-38

Jesus Calls Levi

27 ¹After this he went out and saw ²a tax collector named ³Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me."

28 And ⁴leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company ⁵of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

30 And the Pharisees and ⁶their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, ⁷"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

31 And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

32 ⁸I have not come to call the righteous ⁹but sinners ¹⁰to repentance."

A Question About Fasting

33 And they said to him, ¹¹"The disciples of John ¹²fast often and ¹³offer prayers, ¹⁴and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink."

34 And Jesus said to them, ¹⁵"Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

35 ¹⁶The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and ¹⁷then they will fast in those days."

36 He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.

37 And no one puts new wine into old ¹⁸wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.

38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.