Marcus: Chapter 3

He goes in to a synagogue again, [where] there is a person with a shriveled hand. They observe whether he will attend to him on Shabbat, so they can accuse him. He says to the person with the dried-up hand — Come up to the center.

He says to them — Is it permitted, on Shabbat, to do good or to do evil? To save a life or to kill?

But they are silent.

Angry, he looks around. Angry at the calcification of their hearts, he says to the person — Stretch out your hand. And he stretches it out, and his hand is restored. Then the Separatists leave [and] conspire against him with the Herodians to destroy him.

Yoshua, with his students, goes back towards the lake. A very great number from Galilaia follow,

  and from Youdaia,

  from Yerushalem,

  from Idumaia,

  from across the Yordan,

  and around Tyros and Sidon.

a great number, hearing how much he does, they go to him.

He tells his students that a small boat [should] keep near him, because of the crowd, so they do not crush him. He has attended to so many, and those under the lash fall upon him to grasp him.

The foul æthers, when they see him, fall before him and shout — You are the Divine One! He admonishes them strongly not to make him known.

He goes up a mountain, and calls to him those whom he wishes, and they go up after him. He forms the Twelve to be with him, and to be sent to preach, and be authorized to dispel influences.

He forms the Twelve: he names Shimon “Petros”

  Yaakov [son] of Zebediyah and Yohanan the brother of Yaakov. He names them “Bnay Ra’ma,” that is, “Thunderers”

  Andreas

  Phillipos

  Bar-Tolmaios

  Matthias

  Thomas

  Yaakov [son] of Alphaios

  Thaddaios

  Shimon the Zealot

  Youdas the Sicarius, who will betray him.

He comes to a house, and again a crowd comes near, so that he cannot even eat bread. Hearing [this], those with him go out to seize him, and they carry him up out of it.

The scholars who have come down from Yerushalem say he posesses Ba’al Zevuv, and that [it is] by the source of influences that he dispels them.

Calling them before him, he speaks to them by analogy — How can the Accuser dispel the Accuser? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot be made to stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot be made to stand. If the Accuser rises up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. No one can go in to the house of a strong [one] to ransack his furnishings without first binding the strong [one], and then ransacking his house.

— Amen I say to you that all human failures will be acquitted, and what blasphemies they blaspheme, but whoever blasphemes to the Sacred Æther, has no acquittal in the Æon, but is bound in the Æon by failure.

[This] because they said he has an unclean æther.

His mother and his siblings come [to him]. They stand outside, and send to summon him. Sitting around him is a crowd, and they tell him — Look, your mother and your siblings are outside seeking you. He answers — Who is my mother or my siblings? Looking at those seated in a circle around him, he says — Look: my mother and my siblings. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

Chapter 4