1   Jesus was then led away by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil.

2   For forty days and nights he fasted, and at the end of them he was famished. 3   The tempter approached him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ 4   Jesus answered, ‘Scripture says, “Man cannot live on bread alone; he lives on every word that God utters.”’

5   The devil then took him to the Holy City and set him on the parapet of the temple. 6   ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down; for Scripture says, “He will put his angels in charge of you, and they will support you in their arms, for fear you should strike your foot against a stone.”’ 7   Jesus answered him, ‘Scripture says again, “You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.”’

8   Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. 9   ‘All these’, he said, ‘I will give you, if you will only fall down and do me homage.’ 10   But Jesus said, ‘Begone, Satan! Scripture says, “You shall do homage to the Lord your God and worship him alone.”’

The coming of Christ

11   Then the devil left him; and angels appeared and waited on him.

12   When he heard that John had been arrested, Jesus withdrew to Galilee; 13   and leaving Nazareth he went and settled at Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, in the district of Zebulun and Naphtali. 14   This 15   was to fulfil the passage in the prophet Isaiah which tells of ‘the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, the land beyond Jordan, heathen Galilee’, and says:

16   ‘The people that lived in darkness saw a great light;
light dawned on the dwellers in the land of death's dark shadow.’

17   From that day Jesus began to proclaim the message: ‘Repent; for ^note the kingdom of Heaven is upon you.’

18   Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the lake; for they were fishermen. 19   Jesus said to them, ‘Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ 20   And at once they left their nets and followed him.

21   He went on, and saw another pair of brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they were in the boat with their father Zebedee, overhauling their nets. 22   He called them, and at once they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

23   He went round the whole of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, and curing whatever illness or infirmity there was among the people. 24   His fame reached the whole of Syria; and sufferers from every kind of illness, racked with pain, possessed by devils, epileptic, or paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them. 25   Great crowds also followed him, from Galilee and the Ten Towns, ^note from Jerusalem and Judaea, and from Transjordan.

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