<t /><p class="bodytext">While<n id="1" /> they were going, some<n id="2" /> of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.

So they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story is told among the Jews to this day.<n id="1" />p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together,<n id="1" /> she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

He<n id="1" /> sent them to Bethlehem and said, &#8220;Go and look carefully for the child. When you find him, inform me so that I can go and worship him as well.&#8221;

After listening to the king they left, and once again<n id="1" /> the star they saw when it rose<n id="2" /> led them until it stopped above the place where the child was.

<p class="bodytext">But when he saw many Pharisees<n id="1" /> and Sadducees<n id="2" /> coming to his baptism, he said to them, &#8220;You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am &#8211; I am not worthy<n id="1" /> to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.<n id="2" />

His winnowing fork<n id="1" /> is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse,<n id="2" /> but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.&#8221;<n id="3" />p>

After<n id="1" /> Jesus was baptized, just as he was coming up out of the water, the<n id="2" /> heavens<n id="3" /> opened<n id="4" /> and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove<n id="5" /> and coming on him.

<t /><p class="bodytext">As<n id="1" /> he was walking by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon (called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishermen).<n id="2" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;You are the salt<n id="1" /> of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor,<n id="2" /> how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;When<n id="1" /> you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive<n id="2" /> so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth,<n id="3" /> they have their reward.

But if your eye is diseased,<n id="1" /> your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!p>

But the centurion replied,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Instead, just say the word and my servant will be healed.

Jesus said to him, &#8220;Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky<n id="1" /> have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.&#8221;<n id="2" />

And he said,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Go!&#8221; So<n id="2" /> they came out and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake and drowned in the water.

But so that you may know<n id="1" /> that the Son of Man<n id="2" /> has authority on earth to forgive sins&#8221; &#8211; then he said to the paralytic<n id="3" /> &#8211; &#8220;Stand up, take your stretcher, and go home.&#8221;<n id="4" />

Jesus said to them, &#8220;The wedding guests<n id="1" /> cannot mourn while the bridegroom<n id="2" /> is with them, can they? But the days<n id="3" /> are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them,<n id="4" /> and then they will fast.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins;<n id="1" /> otherwise the skins burst and the wine is spilled out and the skins are destroyed. Instead they put new wine into new wineskins<n id="2" /> and both are preserved.&#8221;p>