Mark 3:11-35

11Often, a person with a bad spirit saw Jesus. Then, the spirit caused the person to fall down on the ground in front of Jesus. The spirit caused that person to shout out, ‘You are the Son of God.’

12Jesus often had to say to the bad spirits, ‘You must not tell anyone who I am.’

13Jesus went up a mountain. He chose some men and he asked them to go there with him. So they met together with him there.

14He chose a group of 12 men. He called them his apostles. He wanted them to be with him. And he would send them to teach people about God.

15He gave these men authority to cause bad spirits to leave people.

16These are the names of the 12 apostles: Simon, (Jesus called him Peter).

17James and John who were the sons of Zebedee. Jesus called them ‘Boanerges’. It means ‘men who are like thunder’.

18Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, who was the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot

19and Judas Iscariot, who later gave Jesus to his enemies.

20Then Jesus went into a house. A crowd of people came together there again. There were so many people that Jesus and his disciples were not even able to eat.

21People told his family what was happening. So they went to take him away with them. They thought that Jesus was crazy.

22Some teachers of God's Law came from Jerusalem. They said, ‘Jesus has a bad spirit called Beelzebul in him. That is Satan, the one who rules all the bad spirits. This man can send bad spirits out of people because Satan gives him authority.’

23So Jesus spoke to the teachers of God's Law. He said, ‘Come here and listen to me.’ He used stories to explain to them, ‘Satan would not fight against himself!

24If armies in the same country start to fight each other, then they will destroy their own country.

25And if the people in one family start to fight against each other, they will destroy their own family.

26So Satan would not attack himself. If he did that, he would destroy his own power. That would be the end of him.

27Nobody can easily go into the house of a strong man to rob him. To do that, he must first tie up the strong man. Then he can take away all that man's valuable things.

28I tell you this: God can forgive all the wrong things that people do. He can also forgive people who say bad things against him.

29But God will never forgive people who say bad things against the Holy Spirit. Those people will always be guilty of a terrible sin.’

30Jesus said that to the teachers of God's Law, because they had said, ‘Jesus has a bad spirit in him.’

31Then, Jesus' mother and his brothers arrived and they stood outside the house. They sent someone into the house with a message. They wanted Jesus to come out to speak to them.

32A crowd of people was sitting around Jesus. Somebody said to him, ‘Look! Your mother and brothers are outside. They are looking for you.’

33Jesus replied, ‘I will tell you who my mother and brothers really are.’

34Then he looked at the people who were sitting around him. He said, ‘Look! Here are my mother and my brothers!

35My brothers and sisters and my mother are the people who do what God wants.’