15. But the news about Yeshua was spreading all the more, and many crowds were coming together to hear and to be healed of their diseases.
16. Yet He would often slip away into the wilderness and pray.
17. Now on one of those days, Yeshua was teaching. Pharisees and Torah scholars were sitting there, who had come from every village of the Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem. And Adonai’s power to heal was in Him.
18. And behold, men were carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher, trying to bring him in and place him before Yeshua.
19. But when they found no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his stretcher through the tiles, right in the middle before Yeshua.
20. When He saw their faith, He said, “Man, your sins are forgiven.”
21. Then the Torah scholars and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this fellow speaking blasphemies? Who can pardon sins but God alone?”
22. Yeshua, knowing their thoughts, replied to them, “Why are you raising questions in your hearts?
23. Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?
24. But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to pardon sins….” He said to the paralyzed one, “I tell you, get up and take your cot, and go home!”
25. Immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.
26. Astonishment took hold of them, and they glorified God and all were filled with awe, saying, “We’ve seen incredible things today!”
27. After these things, Yeshua went out and observed a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. He said to him, “Follow Me.”
28. And leaving everything, he got up and followed Him.
29. Levi made a great banquet for Yeshua at his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining with them.
30. The Pharisees and their Torah scholars began murmuring to His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”