<h3>JESUS FINDS JOY IN ALL HIS WORK</h3>
<p>Once when John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast,
people came to Jesus and said, "Why do the disciples of John and
the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"</p>
<p>Jesus said to them, "Can guests fast at a wedding while the
bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</SPAN></span>
with them they cannot fast. But the time will come when the bridegroom
is taken away from them; then they will fast. No one sews
a piece of new cloth on an old coat; otherwise the patch breaks away
from it, the new from the old, and the tear is made worse. No man
pours new wine into old wine-skins; otherwise the new wine bursts
the skins, and both the wine and the wine-skins are lost. Instead
new wine is poured into fresh wine-skins."</p>
<p>One Sabbath Jesus was walking through the grain-fields; and
his disciples, as they made their way through, began to pull off the
heads of the grain. The Pharisees said to him, "Sir, why are they
doing things that on the Sabbath are unlawful?" He said to them,
"Have you never read what David did when he and his followers
were in need and hungry? how he went into the house of God, when
Abiathar was high priest, and ate the holy bread which only the priests
are allowed to eat, and gave it also to those who were with him?"</p>
<p>And Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and
not man for the Sabbath; so that the Son of Man is master even
of the Sabbath."</p>
<p>At another time he went into a synagogue. A man was there
whose hand was shrivelled. And they watched Jesus to see whether
he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might bring
a charge against him. Jesus said to the man whose hand was shrivelled,
"Rise and come forward." Then he said to them, "Is it lawful
on the Sabbath day to do good or to do harm? To save life or
to kill? Who of you, if he has but one sheep and it falls into a hole
on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Is not a man
of much greater value than a sheep?" But they did not answer.
Then looking around upon them with sorrow and indignation because
they had no sympathy, he said to the man, "Stretch out your
hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was entirely cured. But
the Pharisees went out and at once began to plot with the Herodians
against him, how they might put him out of the way.</p>
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