Matthew 12:18

Plain English Version

“This is the man that God picked to work for himself. God loves him, and he makes God very happy. God will put his spirit in him, and he will tell the people in other nations that God is right and fair.

Cross References

Matthew 12:17

A long time ago, God got his man called Isaiah to write about this, and it is in God’s book. It happened just like Isaiah said. This is what he wrote,

Mark 1:11

And God said to Jesus, “You are my son. I love you very much, and I’m very happy with you.”

Mark 9:7

Then a cloud covered them all, and God talked to them from the cloud. He said, “This is my son. I love him very much. You have to listen properly to him.”

Luke 4:18

“God’s spirit came into me. He picked me to tell good news to poor people. He sent me to tell prisoners, ‘You will go free.’ And he sent me to tell blind people, ‘You will see.’ And he sent me to people that are in big trouble, to take their trouble away.

John 3:34

You see, Jesus only says God’s words. God sent him and gave him the full power of his Holy Spirit.

Acts 10:38

Then God gave Jesus the Holy Spirit, and he gave him power to do his special work. Jesus was from a town called Nazareth, and he went everywhere doing good things. Some people were sick, and the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, was giving them big trouble. But Jesus made them all better. You see, God was with him.

Acts 11:18

The Jewish Christians heard Peter say that, and they stopped arguing with him. They started to thank God and say he is really good. They said, “Now we understand it. God will let anyone come to him, even people that are not Jews, and after they turn away from doing bad things, and they come to him, then he will give them new life that never stops. God is so good.”

Acts 14:27

Paul and Barnabas got all the Christians in Antioch to come together, and they told them all about the things God helped them do. They said, “We told the people that are not Jews about Jesus, and God let them believe in him.”

Ephesians 1:6

So we thank him a lot for that. God loves his son, Jesus, very much, and after we are joined to his son, God is really good to us too.

Colossians 1:1

I’m Paul, and this letter is from me. And Timothy is helping me write it too. God made me Jesus Christ’s special worker.

Colossians 1:13

You know, the boss over the bad spirits always used to push us to do bad things. It’s like we were in a bad place, where he is the boss. But God sent his son, Jesus, to get us out of that place. He took the payback for us, so that now God will not punish us. He set us free from that bad boss, and now we belong to the family of God’s son. God loves his son Jesus very much.

1 Peter 2:4

I will tell you a picture story about how people build a house out of stone. At first they put one good stone in its place. That stone is the important one. They join all the other stones together on to this important stone. Well, that is a picture of Jesus Christ and us. He is like that most important stone. Other people didn’t want him, but God picked him to be the most important one. So come to Jesus, and join up with him.

2 Peter 1:17

It happened like this. Me and 2 other followers of Jesus, we went with him up on to a special mountain, and God the father, he showed us that Jesus is very great and powerful. God told us this, he said, “This is my son. I love him very much, and I’m very happy with him.” Yes, we ourselves heard the voice of our great God. He talked to us from heaven, and he told us that message.