Luke 5:24-39
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.’”