To Set the Burdened Free
14-15Jesus
returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that he was back
spread through the countryside. He taught in their meeting places to
everyone's acclaim and pleasure.
16-21He
came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the
Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was
handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found
the place where it was written,
God's Spirit is on me;
he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to
the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, "This is God's year to act!"
He
rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down.
Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, "You've
just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."
22All who were
there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he spoke. But
they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we've known since he
was a youngster?"
23-27He
answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor, go
heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in
Capernaum.' Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed
in his hometown. Isn't it a fact that there were many widows in Israel
at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when
famine devastated the land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent
was in Sarepta in Sidon? And there were many lepers in Israel at the
time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the
Syrian."
28-30That
set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him
out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff
at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them
the slip and was on his way.