Luke 4 | Liberation and Inclusion Translation

¹ Jesus turned away from the Jordan River full of the Sacred^a Life-breath,^b and he was led by the Life-breath throughout the Wilderness,^c ² being tested by the False Accuser^d for forty days. He didn’t eat anything during those days, and when they were completed, he was hungry.

³ The False Accuser said to him, “If you are the Son of God,^e tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴ “It is written,” Jesus answered, “Humanity does not live by bread alone.”^f

⁵ Leading him up, the False Accuser showed him all the regimes^g throughout the empire^h in a moment of time ⁶ and said to him, “I will give you all this authority and glory, since it has been handed over to me, and I grant it to whomever I want. ⁷ Therefore, if you bow downⁱ before me, it will all be yours.”

⁸ “It is written,” answered Jesus, “You will bow to The-One-Who-Is^j your God, and you will serve as representative^k for them^l alone.”^m

⁹ The False Accuser led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the cornerⁿ of the temple and told him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰ since it is written, ‘God will direct messengers around you to protect you,’^o ¹¹ and ‘They will lift you up with their hands, so that your foot will not crash upon a stone.’”^p

¹² “It is said,” Jesus answered, “‘Don’t put The-One-Who-Is your God to the test.’”^q

¹³ After bringing all the testing to an end, the False Accuser left him until another opportunity.

¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee with the power of the Life-breath, and news about him went out to the whole surrounding area. ¹⁵ He began teaching in their synagogues, being praised by all.

¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where he was brought up, and entered the synagogue on Shabbat, according to custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. After opening the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

¹⁸⁠“The Life-breath of The-One-Who-Is Sovereign^r is upon me
For the sake of whom she^s anointed me
To bring news of triumph^t for people in poverty,
And she sent me to announce release for people who are imprisoned,
And recover sight for those who cannot see,
To send out in freedom those who have been crushed,
¹⁹⁠To announce the coming arrival of the year filled with what is acceptable to the Sovereign One.”^u

²⁰ After closing the scroll, he gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were focused on him.

²¹ “Today, this scripture has been lived out^v as you heard it,” he began telling them.

²² They were all telling others about him and were shocked at the gracious words coming out of his mouth, and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

²³ “Without doubt, you will recite to me this cliché: ‘Heal yourself, Doctor!’” he told them. “And you’ll say, ‘Do all the things we heard were happening in Capernaum here in your hometown too.’”

²⁴ Then he said, “Truly, I’m telling you that no prophet is acceptable in their hometown. ²⁵ Speaking of truth, I tell you, there were many bereaved women^w in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut tight^x for three years and six months, as a severe famine happened throughout all the land.^y ²⁶ Elijah was sent to none of them but only to a woman who was bereaved in Zarephath of Sidon.^z ²⁷ There were also many people with skin diseases in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸ Everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage when they heard these things. ²⁹ They stood up, drove him out of the town, and brought him to the ridge of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down. ³⁰ However, after slipping through the middle of the crowd, he continued his travels.

³¹ He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee. He began teaching the people there each Shabbat,^aa ³² and they were amazed at his teaching because his message was spoken with complete autonomy.^bb

³³ There was a person in the synagogue who had a spirit,^cc an unclean demon, and he called out with a loud voice, ³⁴ “Ah! What is there between you and us, Jesus the Nazarene! Did you come to destroy us? I’ve understood who you are: The one designated for sacred purposes by God!”^dd

³⁵ “Silence!” Jesus commanded it sharply, “Get out of him!” After the demon threw him to the ground in the middle of the crowd, it left him without injuring him.

³⁶ Everyone was stunned, and they began to say to each other, “What does this mean? Because he gives orders to unclean spirits with authority^ee and power, and they come out!” ³⁷ News about him traveled everywhere throughout the region.

³⁸ After standing up and leaving the synagogue, Jesus^ff went into Simeon’s^gg house. Simeon’s mother-in-law was there suffering from a severe fever, and they made a request to Jesus^hh for her. ³⁹ So, standing over her, he sharply commanded the fever, and it left her. Standing up right away, she began to show them hospitality.ⁱⁱ

⁴⁰ As the sun was setting, everyone with people who were sick with various diseases brought them to him. Placing his hands on each one of them, he healed them. ⁴¹ Demons were coming out of many, calling out, “You are the Son of God!” He confronted them sharply and didn’t allow them to speak because they perceived him to be the Christ.^jj

⁴² At daybreak, Jesus went out and traveled to a solitary place, but the crowds were searching for him. They reached him and kept preventing him from leaving them.

⁴³ “I have to bring the news of the triumph of God’s reign to other towns too,” he told them, “because that’s why I was sent.” ⁴⁴ And he continued announcing it in the synagogues of Galilee.^kk

Footnotes

a Traditionally, ‘Holy’
b Traditionally, ‘Spirit.’ The Greek word pneuma could be used to refer to ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ or an animating energy within people, thought to be perceptible in the breath. Hebrew and Latin also use the same word for all these concepts. In scripture, it typically calls back the image to Genesis 1 and 2: “the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NASB) and “the Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into [its] nostrils. The human came to life.” (Genesis 2:7 CEB).
c While this word can refer to undeveloped, wild areas in general, it was also the name of a specific region east of the Dead Sea. That region was the location of the Essene community of Qumran, where many speculate Johanan (John) resided. Additionally, the ‘wilderness’ in the Hebrew Bible is consistently used to represent chaos and scarcity, neglect of needs, sense of threat and hostility, and the place where those things originate, a return to the formlessness and emptiness preceding Creation.
d This is a more literal translation of the Greek diabolon. There’s a history of it being transliterated into other languages and eventually becoming traditionally ‘devil,’ but doing so obscures the meaning of what’s being communicated.
e “The Son of God” was a nickname for the emperor, a title taken on originally by Augustus Caesar, the son of Julius Caesar who was worshiped as divine, and was then used by each subsequent Caesar.
f Quotation of Deuteronomy 8:3
g The Greek word basileia can mean territories (“kingdoms”) or the governing systems that rule them. Rendering it ‘regimes’ here highlights that the test is whether Jesus will succumb to attempting to fulfill his calling through forced domination of the rulers, forcing them to fall under his rule. Essentially, The False Accuser is offering to make Jesus the new emperor in place of Caesar.
h The Greek term oikoumene is different than kosmos (“world”). It refers specifically to “the known world” or “developed area” as opposed to the places inhabited by “uncivilized” (unconquered) peoples or vast, uninhabited wilderness. Essentially, it referred to the area controlled by the Roman Empire.
i Sometimes this word is translated ‘worship.’ That could be a misleading word here, since it is not about praising the goodness of a divine figure but rather submitting to a ruling figure.
j “The-One-Who-Is” is used to translate the Greek kurios (traditionally, “Lord”) when it refers to God, especially in Hebrew Bible quotations. In the Septuagint, kurios regularly replaces the Divine Name (YHWH) following a Jewish oral tradition of saying Adonai aloud wherever the text read YHWH. Translating kurios as “The-One-Who-Is” recovers the Name’s resonance with the Hebrew root haya (“to be”), echoes Exodus 3:14 (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh), and resists the patriarchal/hierarchical connotations of “Lord” in English, while recalling the liberating presence revealed at the burning bush.
k The word translated here as ‘serve as representative’ is the Greek word latreuo. It is often translated ‘serve,’ but it is more specific: formal service as a member of the military or temple staff, an attendant to a priest or king. It carries a ritual quality and an implication of representing a deity or king in performing rituals.
l This is being used as a neuter singular here.
m Quotation of Deuteronomy 6:13
n This term is unclear to scholars. It literally means ‘little wing,’ but what part of the temple that refers to is unknown. It is not used elsewhere in literature about architecture. Some translations render it as ‘pinnacle’ or ‘highest point,’ but they are guessing.
o Quotation of Psalm 91:11
p Quotation of Psalm 91:12
q Quotation of Deuteronomy 6:16
r See note j (The-One-Who-Is / kurios as Divine Name rendering).
s There is no explicit pronoun in the Greek here; the verb form marks the subject without gender. “Life-breath” is paired with feminine pronouns in English to reflect Hebrew linguistic heritage and theological tradition: in Hebrew, “Spirit” is grammatically feminine, and there is a rich tradition of imagining the Spirit/Life-breath as feminine.
t Traditionally, “bring this good news.” The verb euangelizo means to announce or carry the euangelion (often “gospel/good news”). In Greco-Roman context it was a public victory announcement and the ruler’s impending arrival; the biblical writers apply that victory-heralding frame to Jesus. “News of triumph” aims to communicate the contextual force, not just a narrow dictionary gloss.
u Quotation of Isaiah 61:1–2a
v Traditionally, ‘fulfilled.’ It can carry the sense of ‘filled full’ or ‘given fuller meaning,’ like acting on something and bringing it to reality in a new way.
w Or ‘widows’
x Meaning there was no rain
y Reference to 1 Kings 17
z This emphasizes that she was a non-Israelite living outside of Israel.
aa Reference to 2 Kings 5
bb The Greek word exousia is often translated “authority” or “power,” but its root sense is freedom/right to act. It derives from exesti (“it is permitted / it is possible”) and can refer to personal autonomy, civil rights, or delegated ability, not necessarily hierarchical control.
cc The Greek term pneuma literally means “breath.” “Life-breath” is often used to emphasize embodied, communal vitality; however, when context calls for ambiguity between internal psychological reality (trauma, shame, fear internalized from community) and an external potentially spiritual entity, “spirit” is used to preserve that ambiguity in English.
dd Traditionally, ‘holy one’ or elsewhere ‘saint.’ Literally, it’s ‘set apart’ as in ‘designated’ or ‘dedicated’ for a calling.
ee See note bb (exousia as freedom/right to act).
ff The name is added for clarity.
gg Traditionally, ‘Simon.’ ‘Simon’ is the English transliteration of the Greek transliteration of Simeon. There’s a long history of de-Jewish-ing names in Bible translation, stemming from pervasive antisemitism.
hh The name is added for clarity.
ii The Greek word diakoneo (“attend to, wait on, provide for”) can cover waiting tables, logistical support, and ritual service. In domestic scenes it often describes culturally expected hosting: preparing food, ensuring comfort, honoring guests with personal care.
jj Christos is the Greek translation of Hebrew meshiah (Messiah/Christ). Translated, it is “anointed,” i.e., selected for special appointment (often king) and marked in a ceremony with oil.
kk Most Greek manuscripts read “Galilee” here; however, the oldest and most reliable manuscripts read “Judea,” which clashes with context. The SBL Greek New Testament reads “Judea.” The “Judea” reading is likely an error (scribal or earlier), and “Galilee” is chosen here for contextual coherence.