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16 But when some of the Jewish religious leaders[a] saw him eating with these men of ill repute, they said to his disciples, “How can he stand it, to eat with such scum?”

17 When Jesus heard what they were saying, he told them, “Sick people need the doctor, not healthy ones! I haven’t come to tell good people to repent, but the bad ones.”

18 John’s disciples and the Jewish leaders sometimes fasted, that is, went without food as part of their religion. One day some people came to Jesus and asked why his disciples didn’t do this too.

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 2:16 the Jewish religious leaders, literally, “the scribes of the Pharisees.”

16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees(A) saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”(B)

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(C)

Jesus Questioned About Fasting(D)

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.(E) Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

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