Jesus goes to Nazareth
14 Then Jesus returned to Galilee. The Holy Spirit continued to give him power. Everyone who lived near there heard the news about him. 15 He taught people in the Jewish meeting places. Everyone said good things about him.
4:15Jews used their meeting places to pray together and to learn more about God.
16 Jesus went to Nazareth, the town where he had grown up. On the Jewish day of rest, he went to their meeting place. This was what he usually did. He stood up to read aloud from the Bible.
4:16The Jewish day of rest is our Saturday. This was a special day for them, when nobody worked.
17 They gave him the scroll that had the messages of God's prophet Isaiah. Jesus opened the scroll. He found the place where Isaiah wrote:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is on me.
He has chosen me to tell good news to poor people.
He has sent me to tell people who are in prison, “You can go free!”
I must say to people that cannot see, “See again!”
I must cause people that are like slaves to become free.
19 I must tell everyone, “This is the year when God will be kind to his people.” ’
4:19Jesus read the words from Isaiah 61:1-2, but he changed them a bit. 20 When Jesus had read this to the people, he closed the scroll. He gave it back to an officer of the meeting place. Then he sat down to teach the people. Everyone in the meeting place was looking carefully at him.
21 Jesus said to them, ‘Today this message has become true. It has happened while you were listening.’
22 Everyone was talking about Jesus. They were surprised at the good way in which he spoke. They said to each other, ‘We know that he is only Joseph's son.’
23 Jesus then said to them, ‘Now you will tell me the proverb, “Doctor, make yourself well!” You will also say, “We have heard that you did many surprising things in Capernaum. This is your home town, so do the same things here!” 24 I tell you this: People do not accept a prophet of God who comes from their own town.
25 What I tell you is true. There were many widows in the country of Israel when Elijah was alive. At that time, it did not rain for three and a half years. So people were very hungry in all the country. 26 But God did not send Elijah to help a widow in Israel. Instead, God sent Elijah to the country called Sidon. There he helped a widow in a place called Zarephath.
27 Here is another example: When God's prophet Elisha was alive, there were many people in Israel with a bad disease of the skin. But God did not make any of them well. Instead, he made a man well who was from the country called Syria. That man was called Naaman.’
28 The people in the meeting place heard what Jesus said. They became very angry. 29 They stood up and they made him leave the town. They took him to the top of the hill outside the town. They wanted to throw him over the edge to the bottom. 30 But Jesus walked through the middle of the crowd and he went away.
4:28Jesus told the people in the meeting place about himself. But they did not like the things that he was saying. They refused to believe that God had sent him.
