Jesus and the desciples were walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what’s unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which wasn’t lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple’s here. If you’d known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man’s Lord of the Sabbath.”
Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, won’t you take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill. He warned them not to tell others about him. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Here’s my servant whom I’ve chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I’ll put my Spirit on him, and he’ll proclaim justice to the nations. He won’t quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he won’t break, and a smoldering wick he won’t snuff out, till he’s brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.”
Matthew
Love Never Dies 