Jesus Rejected at His Hometown

After Jesus was tempted by the devil, he returned to Nazareth in Galilee where he had been raised. While he was there, he went into the synagogue and taught the people. He stood before the people and unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read it aloud:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were focused on him. He said , “Today, the Word of God is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Everyone was amazed at what Jesus said and they asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

Jesus knew that the people there didn’t really believe in him. They only wanted him to perform miracles, because they heard what he did in Capernaum.

He said to them, “I tell you the truth no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath.”

Suddenly the people became angry towards him and drove him out of the town.

They took him to the edge of the mountain so that they could push him down the cliff and kill him, but Jesus walked right through the crowd and continued on his way.