2 After 6 days, Jesus got Peter, and James, and John, and they went by themselves up to the top of a big hill. While they were there, Jesus started to look different. 3 His clothes got really white and shiny. Nobody can wash clothes good enough to make them properly white like that. 4 And Peter, James and John saw 2 men that lived a long time ago. They were Elijah and Moses. Elijah was a man that told God’s messages to people, and Moses was a leader of the Israel nation. They were there, and they talked to Jesus.

5-6 Peter, James and John were very surprised and frightened, and they didn’t know what to say. But Peter talked anyway. He said to Jesus, “Teacher, it is good that we are here. We can put up 3 special bush shades here, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

7 Then a cloud covered them all, and God talked to them from the cloud. He said, “This is my son. I love him very much. You have to listen properly to him.”[a] 8 Then Peter, James and John looked around for those 2 old men, but they couldn’t see them any more. Only Jesus was there with them.

9 Then they all started to come down from the hill. And as they walked along, Jesus told them really straight, “Don’t tell anyone what you just saw. You have to wait until after I die. I’m God’s special man, and I will die, and then I will come back alive again. After that, you can talk about what you saw.”

10 So Peter, James and John kept quiet about it. They didn’t tell anyone, but they talked to each other about the words Jesus said, “I will die, and then I will come back alive again.” They didn’t know what Jesus meant.

11 Then they asked Jesus about the Jewish law teachers. They said, “Those law teachers say that first of all Elijah has to come back, God’s man that lived a long time ago. He has to come back, and after that, God will send his special man.”[b]

12-13 Jesus said, “Those law teachers are right. That man did come, and he told them God’s message, just like Elijah did a long time ago. That man got things ready for me, but bad people killed him. And they will do the same to me, God’s special man from heaven. They will turn against me and not listen to me, and they will hurt me a lot. A long time ago God got his men to write about that, and it is in God’s book.”

14 They came back down the hill, and they found Jesus’s other followers arguing with the Jewish law teachers. There were lots of people standing around. 15 That mob looked up and saw Jesus, and they were surprised, and they all ran to him, and they said hello to him.

16 Jesus asked them, “What are you mob all arguing about?”

17 One of them said, “Teacher, my son has a bad spirit inside him, and it stops him from talking. 18 It pushes the boy down on to the ground, and his body goes stiff, and he rubs his teeth together, and spit comes out of his mouth. I asked your followers, ‘Please force that bad spirit out of him.’ But they can’t do it.”

19 Jesus said, “Look, you mob, I’ve been here with you a long time, but still you don’t trust God properly. I can’t stay here and wait for you for ever. All right, bring the boy here to me.”

20 The people brought the boy to Jesus. As soon as that bad spirit saw Jesus, it shook the boy and pushed him down, so that he wriggled around on the ground, and a lot of spit came out of his mouth.

21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has your boy been like this?”

The man said, “For a long time, from when he was a little kid. 22 Lots of times the bad spirit pushed him into fires and into water. That bad spirit is trying to kill him. Please feel sorry for us, and help him if you can.”

23 Jesus said, “You said to me, ‘If you can.’ But you know that God is strong enough to do anything if you trust him to do it, right?”

24 The boy’s father yelled out, “I believe God can do it. But please help me believe properly.”

25 Jesus looked around, and he saw a big mob of people coming to watch, so he talked strongly to the bad spirit. He said, “Listen, you bad spirit. You stop people from talking and hearing. I’m telling you now, come out of this little boy, and stay out of him. You can never go back into him.”

26 Then the bad spirit screamed, and it forced the boy to have another bad fit and fall down on the ground, then it went out of the boy. The boy looked like he was dead, and a lot of people said, “Poor boy, he’s finished.” 27 But Jesus grabbed the boy’s hand and helped him stand up. Then the boy’s father took him home.

28 After that, Jesus and his followers went into a house, and his followers asked him quietly, “Why couldn’t we force the bad spirit out of that boy?”

29 Jesus told them, “The only way you can force that sort of bad spirit out of somebody is to pray to God, and get him to force it out.”

30-31 Later Jesus and his followers left that place and went through Galilee country. He didn’t want everyone to know where he was going, so they went along secretly and quietly, and he was teaching his followers as they walked along. He told them about what was going to happen to him. He said, “I’m God’s special man from heaven, but bad men will grab me, and they will kill me. I will be dead for 2 nights, then on the 3rd day I will come alive again.” 32 His followers couldn’t understand what he was talking about. But they felt shame, so they didn’t ask him about it.

33-34 While they walked along the road, Jesus’s followers argued with each other about which one of them was the most important. Then, after they got to Capernium, they all went into a house, and Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” His followers didn’t answer him. They felt too much shame.[c]

35 Then Jesus sat down to teach them, and he called to his 12 special workers to come close to him, and he said, “If any one of you wants to be the leader, you have to think to yourself, ‘I’m not important at all.’ And you have to be a worker for everyone else.”[d]

36-37 There was a young kid in that house, and Jesus picked him up and said, “Look at this little kid. If you follow me, and if you are friendly to little kids like this one, and if you help them, well, really you are friendly to me too. And if you are friendly to me, well, really you are friendly to my father in heaven too. He is the one that sent me here.”[e]

38 John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man forcing bad spirits out of people, and he was using your power by saying your name. But he’s not one of our mob. So we told him to stop.”

39 But Jesus said, “No. Don’t stop him. If somebody uses my power by saying my name to do good and powerful things for people, that person can’t soon turn around and say bad things about me. 40 You see, if somebody is not trying to stop us, well, that person is really on our side.[f] 41 And listen, if somebody knows that you are my follower, and so they try to help you, even if they just give you a drink of water, God will be sure to pay that person with something good for that good thing they did.”[g]

42 Jesus kept on teaching his followers. He said, “If a little kid trusts me, and if somebody gets that little kid to do something bad, God will properly punish that person. Suppose somebody gets a big stone and ties it to that person’s neck and throws them into the sea and drowns them, that is bad for that person, but it is not as bad as the trouble God will give them for getting that little kid to go wrong.

43-44 Look, if there is something that gets you to go wrong, you have to stop yourself. If you want to do something bad with your hand, you have to stop yourself from doing it. It is like you have to cut off your hand. It is better for you to live with God for ever with only one hand, than for God to send you to hell with 2 hands. That fire in hell never goes out.[h] 45-46 In the same way, if you want to do something bad with your foot, you have to stop yourself from doing it. It is like you have to cut off your foot. It is better for you to live with God for ever with only one foot, than for God to send you to hell with 2 feet. 47 It is the same for your eye. If you want to look with your eye at something, and if it gets you to do something bad, you have to look away. It is like you have to dig your eye out. It is better for you to be in God’s family with only one eye, than for God to send you to hell with 2 eyes.[i] 48 Hell is a really bad place and people that go there will have bad pain all the time. It will be like maggots are eating them all the time, and like a fire is burning them all the time. Their pain will never stop.”[j]

49 Jesus also said to them, “God is going to let you have some trouble. He wants to test you to see if you are following him properly. You know how people shake salt on to food to make it good? Well, this trouble will be like God is shaking fire on to you, and it will make you good.

50 You know that salt is good. It makes food better. But if that salt loses its salty taste, it is no good any more, and you can’t fix it up. That is a picture of you mob. You have to be like good salt for people. You have to try to make their lives better, and don’t fight with anyone, but live happy and quiet together.”[k]

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