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The devil tried to trick Jesus
1 Then the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the bush, and the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, tested him there, trying to trick him.*Hebrews 2:18; 4:15 2 Jesus was there for 40 days, and he didn’t eat anything, so he got very hungry.
3 At that time the devil came to him and said, “If you are the son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves of bread.”
4 But Jesus told him, “No. I will not do that. You know what God says. These words are in his book,
‘People don’t live just by eating bread,
but they live by every word that God says.’ ”*Deuteronomy 8:3
5 Then the devil took Jesus to God’s special city, called Jerusalem, and he took him up to the top of the big ceremony house there. 6 The devil said, “If you are the son of God, jump off. You know, these words are in God’s book too,
‘God will tell his angel messengers to look after you,
and they will hold you up with their hands,
so you will not even hurt your foot on a stone.’ ”*Psalm 91:11-12
7 Jesus said, “No. I will not do that. You see, God says this too. These words are in his book,
‘Don’t do something stupid just to test God.’ ”*Deuteronomy 6:16
8 Then the devil took Jesus up to the top of a very high mountain. From there the devil showed him all the people of the world, in all their countries, with all their great things. 9 And the devil said, “If you will get down on your knees and show respect to me, then I will give you all of this, all of these people and all of these things.”
10 Jesus said to the devil, “No. I will not do that either. Satan, you go away from me now. This is what God says in his book,
‘You have to show respect to God.
He is the only God, so just do what he says.’ ”*Deuteronomy 6:13
11 Then the devil went away, and God’s angel messengers came and took care of Jesus.
Jesus started his work
12 After that, Jesus heard that some soldiers grabbed John and put him in jail. So Jesus left Judea country and went back to Galilee country.*Matthew 14:3; Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19-20 13 He went to the town called Nazareth, and then he left that town and went to live in the town called Capernium. It was beside the big lake called Lake Galilee. It was in the country where the Zebulun tribe and the Naphtali tribe used to live.*John 2:12 14 All that happened just like God says in his book. Isaiah was a man that told everyone God’s words, and a long time ago, he wrote this in God’s book,
15 “It will happen in the country that belongs to the Zebulun tribe and the Naphtali tribe.
It is beside the sea, past the Jordan River,
in Galilee country, where there are a lot of people that are not Jews.
16 The people there don’t know much about God.
It is like they are in the dark,
but they will see a big bright light.
They thought they were going to die,
but a light will start to shine for them.”*Isaiah 9:1-2
17 Then Jesus started to tell everybody, “Listen. God is going to show everyone how they can be in his family. So you have to stop doing bad things. You have to turn around and live God’s way.”*Matthew 3:2
The first followers of Jesus
18 One day, Jesus walked along next to Lake Galilee, and he saw 2 men throwing a net into the water to catch fish. That was their job. One man was called Simon. He was also called Peter. And the other man was his brother Andrew.
19 Jesus said, “I want you 2 to come and follow me. I want you to stop catching fish. I’ll give you another job. You will catch people for me.” 20 And straight away, they left their nets and followed him.
21 Then Jesus kept walking along next to the water, and he saw an old man called Zebedee and his 2 sons, James and John. They were getting their nets ready to catch fish. Like before, Jesus called out to James and John to stop their work and follow him. 22 They got up straight away. They left their father, and the boat, and they followed Jesus.
A lot of people followed Jesus
23 After that, Jesus went through all of Galilee country. He taught people in the Jewish meeting houses, and he told them the good news about God’s family. And he made a lot of sick people better. They had all sorts of sickness.*Matthew 9:35; Mark 1:39 24 Then people started to tell other people about Jesus, so that people as far away as Syria country heard about the things he did, and they all started to bring lots of sick people to Jesus. And Jesus made them all better, no matter what sort of sickness they had. Some of them used to fall down and shake a lot, and some of them couldn’t move their arms or legs, and some of them had bad spirits in them. But Jesus made them all better.
25 A big mob of people followed him everywhere he went. These people were from Galilee country, and from the country called Ten Towns, and from Jerusalem city, and from all over Judea country, and from the country east of the Jordan River.