[The first seventeen verses of Matthew consists of Jesus' family tree

[[@Bible:Matt 12]]Chapter 12

[[@Bible:Matt 12:9]]9. He went on from there and entered their church building, and a man with a paralyzed hand was there. Trying to hang something on Jesus, they asked, "Is it legal to heal on a Sunday?" He said to them, "Is there a single man among you who, if he should own a sheep and it should fall in a hole on a Sunday, would not get hold of it and pull it out? Well, isn’t a man worth more than a sheep? So it’s perfectly all right to act beautifully on a Sunday." Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out and, sure enough, it was normal, just like the other one. But the church members went out and held a conference on how they might do him in. Jesus was aware of it and checked out of there. Even so, a lot of people stayed on his trail, and he made them all well. He pled with them to please not make his whereabouts known. (All of this gave meaning to what Isaiah the prophet said:

                        "See, my man whom I selected,
                        My loved one of whom I’m so proud.
                        I will put my breath in him,
                        And he will shout for justice for the black people.
                        He won’t wrangle and hassle,
                        Nor make soapbox speeches.
                        He won’t even wring a chicken’s neck,
                        Or cut off a puppy’s tail,
                        Until he has won out in the fight for justice.
                        His name will inspire hope in the black people.")

[[@Bible:Matt 12:22]]22. Then a possessed man who was blind and dumb was brought to him. He healed the man so he could talk and see. The whole crowd thought it was simply beautiful, and they said, "Isn’t this our Man?" But the church members overheard it and replied, "Why, this guy couldn’t run off mean spirits unless Dung-King, the head Confuser, gave him a hand." Jesus read their minds and said, "Any nation that fights itself will go to pot, and any city or business that beats itself over the head won’t survive. So if Dung-King runs off Dung-King, he’s fighting himself. How, then, will his business survive? Okay, so I’m driving out mean spirits with Dung-King’s help. Now with whose help are your disciples driving them out? They, then, convict you. But, if I, by God’s Spirit, am driving out mean spirits, then the God Movement is squarely confronting you. Look, how can someone break into an armed man’s house and rob him without first overpowering the armed man? Then he can make off with the loot. The man who is not with me is against me, and if he doesn’t help me he hurts me."

[[@Bible:Matt 12:31]]31. "So let me level with you: Any sin and disgrace will be forgiven men except the disgracing of the Spirit. If anybody gives the son of man a black eye, it will be forgiven, but whoever gives the Holy Spirit a black eye will not be forgiven, either nor or in the future. So, either make the tree true and its fruit true, or make the tree wild and its fruit wild. For the fruit from a tree identifies it.

[[@Bible:Matt 12:34]]34. "You sons of snakes, how can you say good things when you are wicked, since the tongue is powered by the overflow from the heart? The good man produces good deeds from the good things stored in his heart, while the mean person produces mean deeds from the mean things stored in his heart. It’s a fact that at the time of testing men will account for every unguarded word they utter. For you will be cleared or convicted by what you affirm or deny."

[[@Bible:Matt 12:38]]38. Then some preachers and church members got together and said, "Professor, we want you to give us a demonstration." He answered, "A mean and wicked society demands a ‘demonstration,’ but none will be given to it except Preacher Jonah’s ‘demonstration.’ For just as Jonah spent three days and nights in the monster’s belly, so will the son of man spend three days and nights in the heart of the earth. In the Judgment the Ninevites will testify against this society and will convict it, because they re-shaped their lives around Jonah’s message, and now a greater one than Jonah is here. In the Judgment, the Queen of the South will testify against this society and convict it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon s wisdom and now a greater one than Solomon is here.

[[@Bible:Matt 12:43]]43. "When a filthy spirit comes out of a man, he wanders through unwatered areas looking for a home. Finding none, he says, ‘I’ll go back to my house that I left.’ He does so, and finds it vacant, cleaned up, and painted. Then be goes and rounds up seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they all move in and live there. So the man is worse off at the end than he was at the beginning. The same will also be true of this wicked society."

[[@Bible:Matt 12:46]]46. While he was still talking to the people, somebody told him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside trying to have a word with you." He said to the man who told him this, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And he stretched out his band toward his students and said, "There are my mother and my brothers. The man who does the will of my spiritual Father is my brother and sister and mother."