Jesus began to teach again by the Sea of Galilee. A very large crowd gathered around him, so he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake while all the people stayed along the shore at the water’s edge.
But the man went out and started spreading the news to everyone. So Jesus couldn’t enter a town openly anymore. He had to stay out in desolate places. But people still came to him from everywhere.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at a tax collection booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him. So Matthew got up and followed him.
Jesus left that place and went into the area of Judea on the other side of the Jordan River. Crowds of people came to him once again, and he taught them as he always did.