Jesus Puts Human Need Above Sabbath Law
About the same time Jesus walked through the cornfields one Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some ears of wheat and eat them. But, when the Pharisees saw this, they said:
“Look! your disciples are doing what it is not allowable to do on a Sabbath!”
“Have not you read,” replied Jesus, “what David did when he and his companions were hungry—how he went into the House of God, and how they ate the consecrated bread, though it was not allowable for him or his companions to eat it, but only for the priests? And have not you read in the Law that, on the Sabbath, the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath and yet are not guilty? Here, however, I tell you, there is something greater than the Temple! And had you learnt the meaning of the words—
‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’
you would not have condemned those who are not guilty. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
Passing on, Jesus went into their Synagogue, and there he saw a man with a withered hand. Some people asked Jesus whether it was allowable to work a cure on the Sabbath—so that they might have a charge to bring against him. But Jesus said to them:
“Which of you, if he had only one sheep, and that sheep fell into a pit on the Sabbath, would not lay hold of it and pull it out? And how much more precious a man is than a sheep! Therefore it is allowable to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man:
“Stretch out your hand.”
The man stretched it out; and it had become as sound as the other. On coming out, the Pharisees plotted against Jesus, to put him to death.
Jesus, however, became aware of it, and went away from that place. A number of people followed him, and he cured them all.
—Matthew.