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Jesus Teaching and Curing
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dwelt was toward the Jerusalem side of the city. It was like a castle, surrounded by moats and bridges.
Next morning Jesus again taught in the school where among the many disciples present were Saturnin, Nathanael Chased, and Zacheus. Many sick had been brought to Bethania. In the house of Simon, the healed leper, a meal was again prepared, at which Jesus distributed all the viands to the poor and invited them to partake with the other guests. This gave rise to the report among the Pharisees and in Jerusalem that Jesus was a spendthrift who lavished upon the mob all that He could lay hands on.
While Jesus was teaching in the school, the crowds of sick, all men, were ranged in a double row of tents from the school to Simon's house. There were no lepers among them, for they showed themselves only in retired places. When Jesus approached the tents, three disciples followed Him like Levites, two on either side, but a little behind Him, and the third directly behind Him. There was no crowd. Jesus went up along one row of tents and down by the other, curing in various ways. He merely passed by some of the sick, and exhorted others without curing them. He told them that they should change their manner of life. Some He took by the hand and commanded to rise, while others He merely touched. One man affected with the dropsy, He stroked over the head and body with His hand, and the swelling immediately went down. The water poured from his whole person in a stream of perspiration. Many of the cured threw themselves prostrate at Jesus' feet. His companions raised them and led them away. When the Lord returned to the school, He caused the cured to be seated near Him, and then He taught.
I saw Jesus sending out the disciples two by two from Bethania into the country to teach and to heal. Some He told to return to Bethania, and others to Bethphage. He Himself with the three silent disciples journeyed a couple of hours southward from
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Bethania to a little village where He healed the sick. Here I saw Him going into the house of a man whom He had once cured of dumbness, but who having sinned again, had now become paralyzed. His hands and fingers were quite distorted. Jesus addressed to him some words of exhortation and touched him. The man arose. He healed likewise several girls who were lying pale and sick. Sometimes they lay unconscious as if dead, and again they alternately wept and laughed heartily. They were lunatics.
When, before the Sabbath, Jesus again returned to Bethania and went to the school, I heard the Jews boasting against Him that He could not yet do what God had done for the Children of Israel when He rained down manna for them in the desert. They were indignant against Jesus. Jesus passed the night this time not in Bethania, but outside in the disciples' inn.
While at this inn, three men came to Him from Jerusalem: Obed, the son of the old man Simeon, a Temple servant and a disciple in secret; the second, a relative of Veronica; and the third, a relative of Johanna Chusa. This last-mentioned became, later on, Bishop of Kedar. For a time also he lived as a hermit near the date trees that, on her flight into Egypt, had bent down their fruit to Mary that she might partake of it. These disciples asked why He had so long abandoned them, why He had in other places done so much of which they knew nothing. In His answer to these questions, Jesus spoke of tapestry and other precious things which looked new and beautiful to one that had not seen them for some time. He said also that if the sower sowed his seed all at once and in one place, the whole might be destroyed by a hailstorm, so the instructions and cures that were scattered far and wide would not soon be forgotten. Jesus' answers were something like the above.
These disciples brought the news that the High
Jesus in Ephron
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Priest and Pharisees were going to station spies in the places round Jerusalem in order to seize Him as soon as He appeared. Hearing this, Jesus took with Him only His two latest disciples, Selam of Kedar and Silvanus, and travelled the whole night with them to Lazarus' estate near Ginea, where Lazarus himself was then stopping. Two days previously he was in the little city between Bethania and Bethlehem, in the neighborhood of which the Three Kings had rested on their journey to the latter place; but on receiving a message from Jesus, he had left and gone to his estate. Jesus knew very well that the three disciples would bring Him this news from Jerusalem and that He Himself would leave Bethania, therefore it was that He had already passed two nights not in Bethania, but in the disciples' inn outside.
Jesus arrived before dawn (it was still dark) at Lazarus' estate and knocked at the gate of the courtyard. It was opened by Lazarus himself who, with a light, conducted Him into a large hall where were assembled Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, John Marc, and Jairus, the younger brother of Obed.
I saw Jesus afterward with the two disciples again in Bethabara and Ephron, where He celebrated the Sabbath. Andrew, Judas, Thomas, James the Less, Thaddeus, Zacheus, and seven other disciples were present, having come hither from Bethania to meet Jesus. When Judas was about leaving Bethania, I saw the Blessed Virgin earnestly exhorting him to be more moderate, to watch over himself, and not interfere in affairs as he did.
In Ephron, Jesus healed the blind, the lame, the deaf and dumb, who had been brought thither for that purpose. He delivered one possessed also from the power of the devil.
On leaving Ephron, He went to a place north of Jericho where there was an asylum for the sick and the poor. Here He restored sight to an old blind man
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whom once before, when engaged in healing, He had sent away, although at the same time He had restored sight to two others by anointing their eyes with salve made of clay mixed with spittle. He now cured this man by His word alone. The village was situated on His way.
From this last place Jesus returned to Lazarus' estate, and thence went with Lazarus to Bethania, whither the holy women came to meet Him.
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