Luke 5:20-39

5:20 When Jesus saw their faith he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” 5:21 Then the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, “Who is this man who is uttering blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 5:22 When Jesus perceived their hostile thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you raising objections within yourselves? 5:23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? 5:24 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralyzed man – “I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher and go home.” 5:25 Immediately he stood up before them, picked up the stretcher he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. 5:26 Then astonishment seized them all, and they glorified God. They were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen incredible things today.”

The Call of Levi; Eating with Sinners

5:27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. 5:28 And he got up and followed him, leaving everything behind.

5:29 Then Levi gave a great banquet in his house for Jesus, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 5:30 But the Pharisees and their experts in the law complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 5:31 Jesus answered them, “Those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The Superiority of the New

5:33 Then they said to him, “John’s disciples frequently fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours continue to eat and drink.” 5:34 So Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 5:35 But those days are coming, and when the bridegroom is taken from them, at that time they will fast.” 5:36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old garment. If he does, he will have torn the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 5:37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 5:38 Instead new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 5:39 No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’”