Matthew 8 Common English Bible

A man with a skin disease

8 Now when Jesus had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. ²A man with a skin disease came, kneeled before him, and said, “Lord, if you want, you can make me clean.”

³Jesus reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do want to. Become clean.” Instantly his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴Jesus said to him, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. This will be a testimony to them.”

Healing of the centurion’s servant

⁵When Jesus went to Capernaum, a centurion approached, ⁶pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is flat on his back at home, paralyzed, and his suffering is awful.”

⁷Jesus responded, “I’ll come and heal him.”

⁸But the centurion replied, “Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. ⁹I’m a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it.”

¹⁰When Jesus heard this, he was impressed and said to the people following him, “I say to you with all seriousness that even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this. ¹¹I say to you that there are many who will come from east and west and sit down to eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹²But the children of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.” ¹³Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it will be done for you just as you have believed.” And his servant was healed that very moment.

Healing of many people

¹⁴Jesus went home with Peter and saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. ¹⁵He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and served them. ¹⁶That evening people brought to Jesus many who were demon-possessed. He threw the spirits out with just a word. He healed everyone who was sick. ¹⁷This happened so that what Isaiah the prophet said would be fulfilled: He is the one who took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.^[a]

Discussions about following

¹⁸Now when Jesus saw the crowd, he ordered his disciples to go over to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹A legal expert came and said to him, “Teacher, I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

²⁰Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One^[b] has no place to lay his head.”

²¹Another man, one of his disciples, said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

²²But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Calming a storm

²³When Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. ²⁴A huge storm arose on the lake so that waves were sloshing over the boat. But Jesus was asleep. ²⁵They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, rescue us! We’re going to drown!”

²⁶He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you people of weak faith?” Then he got up and gave orders to the winds and the lake, and there was a great calm.

²⁷The people were amazed and said, “What kind of person is this? Even the winds and the lake obey him!”

Jesus frees demon-possessed men

²⁸When Jesus arrived on the other side of the lake in the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed came from among the tombs to meet him. They were so violent that nobody could travel on that road. ²⁹They cried out, “What are you going to do with us, Son of God? Have you come to torture us before the time of judgment?” ³⁰Far off in the distance a large herd of pigs was feeding. ³¹The demons pleaded with him, “If you throw us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

³²Then he said to the demons, “Go away,” and they came out and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned. ³³Those who tended the pigs ran into the city and told everything that had happened to the demon-possessed men. ³⁴Then the whole city came out and met Jesus. When they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.