4
Jesus talked to the people in his home town, called Nazareth
14 The Holy Spirit made Jesus very powerful, and he went back to Galilee country. The people that saw him kept on telling other people about him, and those people told more people, so that soon everyone there heard the news about him.
15 He went to the Jewish meeting houses every week, and he taught everyone about God. And they were all really happy with him.
16 Then Jesus went to his own town, called Nazareth. That was the town he grew up in. He went to the Jewish meeting house there on Saturday, like he always did, and he stood up to read to the people from God’s book.
17 A helper there gave him the part that Isaiah wrote. Isaiah was a man that told everyone God’s messages, a long time ago. Jesus opened the book to the right place, and he read these words.
18 “God’s spirit came into me.
He picked me to tell good news to poor people.
He sent me to tell prisoners, ‘You will go free.’
And he sent me to tell blind people, ‘You will see.’
And he sent me to people that are in big trouble, to take their trouble away.
19 He sent me to tell everybody, ‘This is the time now for God to be good to you.’ ”
20 Then Jesus closed the book, gave it back to the helper there, and sat down. Everybody kept looking straight at Jesus.
21 And then he started to teach them. He said, “You just heard me read that message that Isaiah wrote, a long time ago. Well, those things are happening right now, today, while you are listening to me.”
22 All those people started talking together. They said good things about Jesus, and they said, “Wow. He talked real good. But we know this man, he is Joseph’s son.”
23 So Jesus said, “I know what you are going to say next. You are going to use the picture talk that some people use. They say, ‘Doctor, make yourself better, to show us that you know how to make people better.’ And you mob will say to me, ‘Show us that you know how to do powerful things. Do them here, in your own home town, like you did in Capernium.’
24 Listen, whenever God picks a man to tell his messages, the people of his own home town don’t want him. They reckon they know him, so they will not listen to him.
25-26 Think about these 2 stories in God’s book. Remember the story about God’s man, Elijah, that lived a long time ago. Our people, the Israel nation, did bad things at that time, so God punished them. He stopped the rain. No rain fell for 3½ years, and no food plants grew in the gardens, so everybody was short of food, and they were very hungry. But God looked after Elijah, and sent him to another place called Zarefath, in Sidon country. God got a widow there to look after Elijah, and God gave that widow enough food for herself, and her son, and Elijah too. Listen, there were a lot of widows in Israel at that time, but God did not save a widow that belonged to Israel, he saved a widow that belonged to Sidon country, not one of us Israel people.
27 And remember the story about Elisha, another one of God’s men that lived a long time ago. At that time, there was a man called Nayman, that belonged to Syria country. He had a bad skin sickness. But Elisha used God’s power to make him better. Listen, there were a lot of people in Israel that had a bad skin sickness at that time, but God made a Syrian man better, not one of us Israel people.”
28 Those people in the meeting house heard Jesus say those things. They got really angry because they thought they were better than people from other places.
29 They got up and forced him out of the town. That town is on a big hill, and that mob chased Jesus up that hill. They were going to throw him off the top of the cliff there, to kill him.
30 But Jesus turned around, and he just went through the middle of that mob and went away.
(We have not yet translated 4:31—6:42. You can read most of those stories and messages in Mark 1:14-45; 2:1—3:19; Matthew 4:18-22; 5:3-12; 5:38-48; 7:1-5, 12.)