But when Peter heard that I wished to go onto the sea, he asked Me whether he should go ahead and prepare the large boat. But I said to him, ‘Do not worry about that; when we arrive there, everything will already be prepared for us.’
Mary too asked whether she should prepare something for midday or for the evening. And I say to her, ‘Neither for midday nor for the evening! For we shall not return until late at night.’
Then I tell the disciples that if they wish to come along, they should set out. And all quickly rise and go with Me to the sea, which, as is known, began not far from Nazareth.
When we came to the sea, a multitude of people was gathered there, and several boats were there, and Peter’s was not missing. We immediately boarded Peter’s boat and pushed off from the shore into the lake.
But when the people saw that I was going onto the lake, they boarded a multitude of boats and rowed after Me.
But one boat also carried the one of the three Pharisees who was a school ruler, had a fine country estate near Capernaum and had been with Me this day in the house at Nazareth. When he had reached My boat with his, he at once fell to his knees in his boat and begged Me, saying, ‘Lord, my daughter is in her last throes. If only you would come there and lay your hands on her so that she might become well again!?’ We were not yet very far from the shore, and I told Peter to have the boat steered back.
When we stepped onto the shore again, there was such a crowd there that we could scarcely get farther, and it took us about three hours to reach Jairus’s house, which an ordinarily good walker would otherwise easily have reached in one hour.
As, guided by Jairus, we in a manner pushed our way through the heavy press rather than walked forwards, a woman who had suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years and had already handed over almost all her fortune to physicians just to become well also pushed her way up to Me from behind on this occasion and touched My garment in the belief that she would thereby become well; for the woman had heard much about Me.
But since she was a Greek woman and not a Jewish woman, she did not dare come to Me openly, because at that time there was great tension between Jews and Greeks over trade and precedence in Rome, a dispute in which each people wished to have the precedence.
As a highly cultivated, heroic people, the Greeks stood in far greater esteem among the Romans and also enjoyed much greater advantages from Rome than the Jews, who had a very bad reputation in Rome. The Greeks were also, in a certain sense, the secret police over the Jews and were therefore even less tolerated by the Jews.
Hence also the fear of the Jews, especially among Greek women, because the story was widely spread among the Greeks by cunning Jews that the Jews, familiar with every kind of sorcery, would make Greek women barren if a Jew merely fixed a Greek woman with a thoroughly rigid and steady gaze. And this was also the reason here why this woman had pushed her way up to Me from behind.
But when she had touched Me, she noticed that she was getting better; the well of her blood was immediately stopped up, and a great calm took possession of her inner disposition concerning her ailment, and she perceived in her whole being that she had become entirely better.
But I immediately looked around and asked the disciples standing nearest Me, ‘Who touched Me!?’
But the disciples became almost annoyed at this question and said, ‘You surely see how the people press upon You, and can ask who touched You!?’
But I said to the disciples, ‘It is not so! Whoever touched Me here had a faith and an intention for which he touched Me; for I clearly noticed that a power has gone away from Me!’
Then the woman, whom I fixed with a steady gaze during the question, was frightened, for I knew within Myself very well that this very woman had touched My garment and why she did so. She fell down before Me, confessed everything to Me freely and openly and asked Me for forgiveness; for her fear was so great that she trembled and shook all over her body, which is easy to understand if one gives proper consideration to the reasons briefly stated earlier.
But I looked at her gently and said to her, ‘Rise, My daughter; your faith has helped you! Now go in peace to your homeland and be well and free from your affliction!’
She had half a day’s journey to get there; for she was the unmarried daughter of a tenant farmer beyond Zabulon, who once in her thirteenth year had transgressed with a sensual man who gave her two pounds of gold for it. But afterwards she had to suffer for twelve years and use up the full two pounds of gold, which at that time amounted to more than thirty thousand florins in paper money in this time; for at that time one could obtain more for a silver groschen than in this time for a full ten gulden in hard coin. She has thus become very rich through such a gift; nevertheless she first had to give up all her wealth before she could become well.