"Fill the jars with water."
The servants obeyed Jesus, and filled the jars up to the brim. Then Jesus spoke to them again, and said:
"Now draw out some of the water, and take it to the ruler of the feast."
They drew out water from the jars, and saw that it had been turned into wine. The ruler did not know from what place the wine had come; but he said to the young man who had just been married, the bridegroom:
"At a feast everybody gives his best wine at the beginning, and afterward, when his guests have drunk freely, he brings on wine that is not so good; but you have kept the good wine until now."
This was the first time that Jesus used the power that God had given him, to do what no other man could do. Such works as these were called "miracles"; and Jesus did them as signs of his power as the Son of God. When the disciples saw this miracle, they believed in Jesus more fully than before.
After this Jesus went with his mother and his younger brothers to a place called Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. But they stayed there only a few days, for the feast of the Passover was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem to attend it. You remember that the feast of the Passover was held every year, to keep in mind how God had led the people of Israel out of Egypt long before.
When Jesus came to Jerusalem, he found in the courts of the Temple men who were selling oxen and sheep and doves for the sacrifices, and other men sitting at tables changing the money of Jews who came from other lands into the money of Judea. All this made the courts around the Temple seem like a market, and not a place for the worship of God.
