\v 1 Then Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan River, and the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness.
\v 2 The Holy Spirit led him around in the wilderness for forty days. While he was there, the devil kept tempting him. During the entire time Jesus was in the wilderness he did not eat anything, so when the forty days were over, he was very hungry.
\v 5 Then the devil took Jesus up to the top of a high mountain and showed him in an instant all the nations in the world.
\v 6 Then he said to Jesus, "I will give you the right to rule all these nations and you will possess all their splendor and wealth. God has permitted me to control them all, and so I can do whatever I want to do with them.
\v 7 So if you worship me, I will let you rule them all!"
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\v 8 But Jesus replied, "No, I will not worship you, because it is written in the scriptures, 'You must only worship the Lord, your God. He is the only one you may serve!'"
\v 9 Then the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem. He set him on the highest part of the temple and said to him, "If you really are the Son of God, jump down from here.
\v 14 After this, Jesus left the wilderness and returned to the district of Galilee. The Holy Spirit was empowering him. Throughout that region, people heard about Jesus and told others about him.
\v 15 He taught people in their synagogues and they all spoke highly of him because of his teaching.
\v 16 Then Jesus went to Nazareth, the town where he grew up. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue, as he usually did. He stood up to read aloud something from the scriptures.
\v 17 A synagogue attendant handed him a scroll containing the words that the prophet Isaiah had written long ago. Jesus unrolled the scroll and found the place where these words were written:
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\q1 \v 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is in me.
\q1 He has appointed me to declare God's good news to people who are poor.
\q1 He has sent me here to proclaim that the captives will go free,
\v 22 Everyone there heard what he said and marveled at him, and they were amazed at how well he spoke. But some of them said, "This man is only Joseph's son, right?"
\v 23 He said to them, "Surely some of you will quote to me the proverb that says, 'Doctor, heal yourself!' You will say, 'Do here in your hometown the same kind of miracles that you did in Capernaum!'"
\v 25 But think about this: There were many widows in Israel during the time when the prophet Elijah lived, when there was a great famine throughout the country because there had been no rain for three and half years.
\v 26 But God did not send Elijah to help any of those Israelite widows. God sent him to the town of Zarephath near the city of Sidon, to help a widow.
\v 27 There were also many Israelite lepers in Israel during the time when the prophet Elisha lived. But Elisha did not heal any of them. He healed only Naaman, a man from Syria."
\v 28 When all the people in the synagogue heard him say that, they were very angry.
\v 29 So they all got up and shoved him out of the city. They took him to the top of the hill outside their city in order to throw him off the cliff and kill him.
\v 34 "Ha! Jesus, from Nazareth! Evil spirits have nothing to do with you! Have you come to destroy us all? I know who you are. You are the Holy One from God!"
\v 35 Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, saying, "Be quiet and come out of him!" The demon threw the man down on the ground in the midst of the people and came out of him without harming him.
\v 36 All the people in the synagogue were very amazed. They said to each other, "He speaks with confidence, and his words have so much power! Even evil spirits obey him and come out of people when he commands them to!"
\v 38 Then Jesus left the synagogue and went to Simon's house. Simon's mother-in-law was sick and had a high fever. Some people who were there asked Jesus to heal her.
\v 40 When the sun was setting that day, many people brought to Jesus their friends or relatives who were sick with various diseases. He put his hands on them and healed all of them.
\v 41 He also was forcing evil spirits to come out of many people. As the evil spirits left those people, they shouted to Jesus, "You are the Son of God!" But he commanded those evil spirits not to tell people about him, because they knew that he was the Messiah.
\v 42 The next morning Jesus went out to an uninhabited place. Crowds of people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
\v 43 But he said to them, "I must tell people in other cities also the message about how God is going to rule everyone, because that is what I was sent to do."
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