23
Which is easier to say? `Your sins are forgiven you'? or `Get up and walk'?
24
But look! I will prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." He then said to the paralytic, "I say to you: get up, pick up your mattress and go home!"
25
Immediately, in front of everyone, he stood up, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home praising God.
26
Amazement seized them all, and they made a b'rakhah to God; they were awestruck, saying, "We have seen extraordinary things today."
27
Later Yeshua went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi sitting in his tax-collection booth; and he said to him, "Follow me!"
28
He got up, left everything and followed him.
29
Levi gave a banquet at his house in Yeshua's honor, and there was a large group of tax-collectors and others at the table with them.
30
The P'rushim and their Torah-teachers protested indignantly against his talmidim, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?"
31
It was Yeshua who answered them: "The ones who need a doctor aren't the healthy but the sick.
32
I have not come to call the `righteous,' but rather to call sinners to turn to God from their sins."
33
Next they said to him, "Yochanan's talmidim are always fasting and davvening, and likewise the talmidim of the P'rushim; but yours go on eating and drinking."