Wednesday, August 26

²⁰Now Jesus went home, and a crowd gathered so that they were not able to eat. ²¹When his family heard this they went out to restrain him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” ²²The experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the ruler of demons he casts out demons!” ²³So he called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will not be able to stand. ²⁵If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan rises against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand and his end has come. ²⁷But no one is able to enter a strong man’s house and steal his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can thoroughly plunder his house. ²⁸I tell you the truth, people will be forgiven for all sins, even all the blasphemies they utter. ²⁹But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin” ³⁰(because they said, “He has an unclean spirit”).

³¹Then Jesus’ mother and his brothers came. Standing outside, they sent word to him, to summon him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.” ³³He answered them and said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And looking at those who were sitting around him in a circle, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

¹Again he began to teach by the lake. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there while the whole crowd was on the shore by the lake. ²He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching said to them: ³“Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. ⁵Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. ⁶When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, it withered. ⁷Other seed fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. ⁸But other seed fell on good soil and produced grain, sprouting and growing; some yielded thirty times as much, some sixty, and some a hundred times.” ⁹And he said, “Whoever has ears to hear had better listen!”