While Jesus was speaking, four men came, carrying on a bed a man who was sick with the palsy, a disease which makes one helpless, unable to use his hands, to walk or to stand alone. They were very eager to bring this man to Jesus to be cured, but on account of the crowd they could not come into the house or even into the yard in front of it. They were bound, however, in some way to get this palsied man to Jesus. They climbed up to the roof of the house and pulled the sick man up. Then they broke open the roof, never minding the dust and litter that fell upon the heads of the people below. When they had made an opening large enough, they let the man down, wrapped in a blanket and lying upon a mattress, right in front of Jesus. All this showed their faith in Jesus. They believed that he could cure the palsied man, and were ready to take any trouble to bring him before the Saviour.
Jesus looked at the man, and said to him:
"My son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven!"
Some of these Pharisees, the enemies of Jesus, were sitting near, and as they heard these words they thought in their own minds, though they did not speak it aloud:
"What wicked words are these! This man speaks as though he were God! No man has the right to forgive sins; that belongs to God alone. What wickedness, for this man to pretend to have God's power!"
The leper knelt down before Jesus and called out to him: "Oh, sir, if you choose you can make my flesh pure and clean."
Jesus knew their thoughts, for he could look into their hearts. He said to them:
"Why do you think wicked things in your hearts? Which is the easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise up and walk'? But I will show you that while I am on earth as the Son of Man, God has given me the power to take away sin."
Then he turned to the palsied man lying on the couch, and said with a voice of power: