Mark 1

17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me [as My disciples, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk], and I will make you fishers of men.”

40 And a leper came to Him, begging Him and falling on his knees before Him, saying, “If You are willing, You are able to make me clean (healed).”

41 Moved with compassion [for his suffering], Jesus reached out with His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Mark 3

5 After looking around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness and arrogance of their hearts, He told the man, “Hold out your hand.” And he held it out, and his hand was [completely] restored.

Mark 4

1 Again Jesus began to teach beside the sea [of Galilee]. And a very large crowd gathered around Him, so He got into a boat [anchoring it a short distance out] on the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore.

2 And He taught them many things in parables, and in His teaching He said to them,

3 “Listen! A sower went out to sow seed;

4 and as he was sowing, some seed fell by the road, and the birds came and ate it up.

5 Other seed fell on rocks where there was not much soil; and immediately a plant sprang up because the soil had no depth.

6 And when the sun came up, the plant was scorched; and because it had no root, it dried up and withered away.

7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

8 And other seed fell into good soil, and as the plants grew and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundred times [as much as had been sown].”

9 And He said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear and heed My words.”

10 As soon as He was alone, those who were around Him, together with the twelve [disciples], began asking Him about [the interpretation of] the parables.

11 He said to them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been given to you [who have teachable hearts], but those who are outside [the unbelievers, the spiritually blind] get everything in parables,

12 so that they will continually look but not see, and they will continually hear but not understand, otherwise they might turn [from their rejection of the truth] and be forgiven.”

13 Then He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand and grasp the meaning of all the parables?

14 The sower sows the word [of God, the good news regarding the way of salvation].

15 These [in the first group] are the ones along the road where the word is sown; but when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

16 In a similar way these [in the second group] are the ones on whom seed was sown on rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy [but accept it only superficially];

17 and they have no real root in themselves, so they endure only for a little while; then, when trouble or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they [are offended and displeased at being associated with Me and] stumble and fall away.

18 And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word,

19 but the worries and cares of the world [the distractions of this age with its worldly pleasures], and the deceitfulness [and the false security or glamour] of wealth [or fame], and the passionate desires for all the other things creep in and choke out the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

20 And those [in the last group] are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word [of God, the good news regarding the way of salvation] and accept it and bear fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much [as was sown].”

Mark 5

14 The herdsmen [tending the pigs] ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what had happened.

15 They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the man who had [previously] had the “legion” [of demons]; and they were frightened.

16 Those who had seen it described [in detail] to the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man, and [told them all] about the pigs.

17 So the people began to beg with Jesus to leave their region.

18 As He was stepping into the boat, the [Gentile] man who had been demon-possessed was begging with Him [asking] that he might go with Him [as a disciple].

19 Jesus did not let him [come], but [instead] He said to him, “Go home to your family and tell them all the great things that the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

20 So he [obeyed and] went away and began to publicly proclaim in Decapolis [the region of the ten Hellenistic cities] all the great things that Jesus had done for him; and all the people were astonished.

Mark 8

1 In those days, when there was again a large crowd [gathered before Him] and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and told them,

2 “I feel compassion for the crowd; they have been with Me now for three days and have nothing [left] to eat.

36 For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world [with all its pleasures], and forfeit his soul?

Mark 9

35 Sitting down [to teach], He called the twelve [disciples] and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all [in importance] and a servant of all.”

Mark 12

41 And He sat down opposite the [temple] treasury, and began watching how the people were putting money into the treasury. And many rich people were putting in large sums.

42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a mite.

43 Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, this poor widow put in [proportionally] more than all the contributors to the treasury.