Five Thousand Fed

¹³ When Jesus heard about John, He left there privately in a boat and went to a secluded place. But when the crowds heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities.^{(A) 14} When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt [profound] compassion for them and healed their sick.

¹⁵ When evening came, the disciples came to Him and said, “This is an isolated place and the hour is already late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶ But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!” ¹⁷ They replied, “We have nothing here except five loaves and two fish.” ¹⁸ He said, “Bring them here to Me.” ¹⁹ Then He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and He took the five loaves and the two fish and, looking up toward heaven, He blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people, ²⁰ and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up twelve full baskets of the leftover broken pieces. ²¹ There were about 5,000 men who ate, besides women and children.

³² And they went away by themselves in the boat to a secluded place.^{(A) 33} Many [people] saw them leaving, and recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the [surrounding] cities, and got there ahead of them. ³⁴ When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd [waiting], and He was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd [lacking guidance]; and He began to teach them many things. ³⁵ When the day was nearly gone, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is an isolated place, and it is already late; ³⁶ send the crowds away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” ³⁷ But He replied, “You give them something to eat!” And they asked Him, “Shall we go and buy 200 ^[a]denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”^{(B) 38} He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go look!” And when they found out, they said, “Five [loaves], and two fish.” ³⁹ Then Jesus commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰ They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties [so that the crowd resembled an orderly arrangement of colorful garden plots]. ⁴¹ Taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing [of praise and thanksgiving to the Father]. Then He broke the loaves and [repeatedly] gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and He divided up the two fish among them all. ⁴² They all ate and were satisfied. ⁴³ And the disciples picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces [of the loaves], and of the fish. ⁴⁴ Those who ate the loaves were five thousand men [not counting the women and children].

⁵ Jesus looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming toward Him, and He said to Philip, “Where will we buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ But He said this to test Philip, because He knew what He was about to do. ⁷ Philip answered, “Two hundred denarii (200 days’ wages) worth of bread is not enough for each one to receive even a little.” ⁸ One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ⁹ “There is a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are these for so many people?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down [to eat].” Now [the ground] there was [covered with] an abundance of grass, so the men sat down, about ^[a]5,000 in number. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated; the same also with the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² When they had eaten enough, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces so that nothing will be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up, and they filled twelve large baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.