24. But I will prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, stand up! Take your mat and go home.”
25. Then the man stood up before the people there. He picked up his mat and went home, praising God.
26. All the people were fully amazed and began to praise God. They were filled with much respect and said, “Today we have seen amazing things!”
27. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax office. Jesus said to him, “Follow me!”
28. Levi got up, left everything, and followed Jesus.
29. Then Levi gave a big dinner for Jesus. The dinner was at Levi’s house. At the table there were many tax collectors and other people, too.
30. But the Pharisees and the men who taught the law for the Pharisees began to complain to the followers of Jesus. They said, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
31. Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor. It is the sick who need a doctor.
32. I have not come to invite good people. I have come to invite sinners to change their hearts and lives!”
33. They said to Jesus, “John’s followers often give up eating and pray, just as the Pharisees do. But your followers eat and drink all the time.”
34. Jesus said to them, “When there is a wedding, you cannot make the friends of the bridegroom give up eating while he is still with them.
35. But the time will come when he will be taken away from them. Then his friends will give up eating.”
36. Jesus told them this story: “No one takes cloth off a new coat to cover a hole in an old coat. If he does, he ruins the new coat, and the cloth from the new coat will not be the same as the old cloth.
37. People never pour new wine into old leather bags for holding wine. If they do, the new wine will break the bags, and the wine will spill out. Then the leather bags for holding wine will be ruined.
38. People always put new wine into new leather bags.