26
Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, “We have seen amazing things today!”
27
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him.
28
So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
29
Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them.
30
But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum? ”
31
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.
32
I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
33
One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”
34
Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not.
35
But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
36
Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.