1 Jesus and his followers left that country and went back to his own town, called Nazareth.

2-3 On the Jewish people’s rest day, Jesus went to the Jewish meeting house, and he started to teach the people God’s message. A lot of the people heard his words, and they were really shocked. They said, “How does he know so much? How come he can do powerful things? He’s nobody special. We know him. He grew up here, in this town. His mother, Mary, lives here, with his brothers, James, Joses, Judas and Simon, as well as his sisters. His job here is to make things with wood.” So those Nazareth people got angry, and they wouldn’t take any notice of him.

4 Jesus then said to them, “If God gives a man a message, lots of people know he is God’s man, and they respect him. But not his own people. They lived with that man and knew him from the time he was a little boy. They don’t respect him. Even his close family and relatives don’t listen to him.”* John 4:44

5-6 You see, the people of Jesus’s own town didn’t believe in him, and he was really shocked. He couldn’t do anything really powerful there, because they didn’t believe in him. He only touched a few sick people and made them better. Then he left Nazareth, and went to other towns, and taught God’s word to the people there.

7-11 Jesus called together his 12 special workers. He told them, “You have to go to every town and tell my message to the people. Let them take care of you when you go there. Don’t take a bag, or food, or money, or spare clothes with you. Just take your shoes and a walking stick. After you get to a town, if the people in that town are happy for you to stay there, just stay in one house. Don’t move around to different houses. But if the people in that town don’t want you to be there, and if they will not listen to you, then you have to go away from that town. As you leave it, shake the dirt off your feet. That will show those people that they will get trouble. It will be like you are telling them, ‘You didn’t take any notice of my message, so God will judge you and punish you.’ ”* Luke 10:4-11; Acts 13:51

And Jesus told his special workers, “I’m giving you my power to force bad spirits out from people.” Then Jesus split them up into 6 teams with 2 men in each team, and he sent them out to do God’s work. 12 So his special workers went to other towns, and they told everyone to turn around, to change their lives, and to come back to God’s way. 13 Those men forced a lot of bad spirits out of people. And they put olive oil on a lot of sick people, like medicine for them, and those sick people got better.* James 5:14

14-29 This is the story about what happened to John, the man that baptised people. The big boss over that country was Herod, and his brother was Philip. Philip’s wife’s name was Herodias. But Herodias left Philip, and Herod married her.

John kept on telling Herod, “You are breaking God’s law. You shouldn’t have your brother’s wife.” Herodias hated John for saying that, and she wanted to kill him, but Herod sent some soldiers to grab John and keep him in jail, so Herodias couldn’t do anything to him. John was a good man, one of God’s own men, so Herod respected John, and he was a bit frightened of him too. Herod used to talk with John. He didn’t really understand John’s message, but he liked to listen to him.

Some time later, Herod had a birthday party. All the leaders of Herod’s army, and the government bosses from Galilee country, they were all there at Herod’s party.

Herodias’s daughter danced for them at that party. Herod and everybody else really liked to watch her dance. She made them really happy, so Herod made a strong promise to her. He told her, “I want to give you something really good. You can ask for anything. I will give you anything you ask for, even as much as half of this country. This is true. I’m not lying.”

That young girl went outside and asked her mother, “What will I ask for?”

Her mother said, “Go back in and ask the big boss to send a soldier to cut off John the Baptiser’s head and give it to you.”

The girl ran back into the party and said to Herod, “I want you to give me John the Baptiser’s head on a big plate, and I want it right now.”

When Herod heard her say that, he was really sad. But he didn’t want to break his promise. He didn’t want to feel shame in front of his friends, so he sent a soldier to cut off John’s head, and to bring it back to the girl on a big plate.

The soldier went to the jail, and he cut off John’s head, and he brought it back to the party, and he gave it to the young girl, and then she gave it to her mother.

John’s friends heard the bad news, so they came and got his body, then they took it away and buried it.

Later lots of people heard about what Jesus was doing, and they talked about him all the time. Some people said, “Jesus is really Elijah, that old man that told God’s messages a long time ago. God made him alive again.”

Some other people said, “Jesus is a man talking for God, just like those other men that told God’s messages a long time ago.”

But some people reckoned, “Jesus is really John the Baptiser. God made John alive again, and God gave him power to do great things.”

Herod heard those stories, and he said, “I got my soldiers to cut John’s head off, but this man, Jesus, he has to be John the Baptiser. I reckon God made him alive again.”* Matthew 16:14; Mark 8:28; Luke 3:19-20; 9:19

30 Some time later, Jesus’s 12 special workers came back from telling his message to all the towns. They stood around Jesus and told him everything they did, and everything they taught the people in the towns.

31 While they were talking, lots of other people kept on coming up to Jesus, and Jesus and his followers didn’t have time to eat any food. So Jesus said to his followers, “Let’s go to a quiet place out bush, so that we can rest for a while.”

32 Then Jesus and his followers got into a boat and started to go across the lake, to a quiet place away from all the people. But lots of people saw them leave. 33 Those people were from a lot of different towns, but they knew the place that Jesus and his special workers were going to, so they ran around the side of the lake, and they got there first, before the boat.

34 Then Jesus and his special workers got to that place, and they got out of the boat. Jesus looked at the mob of people waiting for him, and he felt sad for them. They didn’t have anyone looking after them. They were like a mob of sheep that had nobody to take care of them. So Jesus started to teach them lots of things.* Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17; 2 Chronicles 18:16; Ezekiel 34:5; Matthew 9:36

35 At the end of the day, Jesus’s followers went to him and said, “It’s nearly time for the sun to go down, and we are way out here in the bush. 36 You have to send the people away from here so that they can find some food. They can go to a nearby farm or to a town, to buy some food to eat.”

37 Jesus said to them, “No. You mob give them some food to eat.”

But they said, “What? We haven’t got that much food. Do you want us to go and buy a lot of bread for them? That will cost thousands of dollars.”

38 Jesus said to his followers, “How much food have you got? Go and see what there is.”

They came back to him and said, “We’ve got 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.”

39-40 Jesus told his followers to get the people to sit on the green grass in groups, maybe about 50 people in each group, or maybe 100 people.

41 Then Jesus picked up the bread and the fish, then he looked up to the sky, and he said, “Thank you God for this bread and this fish.” Then Jesus broke the bread and the fish into bits, and he gave them to his followers to give to the people.

42 All of the people got some bread and some fish, and they ate until they were full. 43 After that, Jesus’s followers picked up the bits of food that nobody ate. They filled up 12 big baskets with that left-over food. 44 A really big mob of people ate that food. There were 5,000 men in that mob, as well as women and kids.

45 As soon as they finished eating, Jesus told his followers, “Get into the boat and row across the lake, to the place called Bethsayida. I will follow you mob some time later.”

Then he started telling all the people, “You mob can all go home now. Goodbye.” 46 After he said goodbye to them, Jesus went up into the hills to pray.

47 Then night time came, and Jesus was still alone on the land, and the boat was half-way across the lake.

48 Later that night, Jesus looked out and saw that his followers were having a hard time rowing the boat. The wind was stopping them. Just before day-light, Jesus walked to them on top of the water, and it looked like he was going to keep going past them.

49-50 His followers saw him walking on the water, and they thought he was a ghost. They got really frightened, and they screamed. Straight away, Jesus said to them, “It’s all right. It’s me, I’m Jesus. Don’t be frightened.”

51 Then Jesus got into the boat with his followers, and straight away the wind stopped blowing. The men in the boat were surprised. 52 They still couldn’t understand about Jesus. They saw what he did with the bread and the fish the day before, but they couldn’t work it out. It was like their brains were no good.

53 Then they got to the dry land again, in the country called Gennesaret, and they tied up the boat. 54 A lot of people saw Jesus getting out of the boat, and they knew who he was, 55 so they ran around everywhere in that country, and they put the sick people on swags, and they carried them to Jesus, to wherever people said that Jesus was. 56 Jesus went to little towns, and to big towns in that country. Wherever he went, the people carried their sick friends and family to the middle of the town, and they put them on the ground. Those sick people asked Jesus if they could touch his clothes, and everyone that touched his clothes got better.