When the priests and scribes hear such language from their fellow believers, they quickly withdraw. For those who had come to them numbered about a hundred, and the fullest earnestness flashed from their eyes; for they had long perceived who was behind the Jewish priests and scribes, and had long hated them more than any pestilence.
But when the priests, Pharisees and scribes perceived this very thing—that the Jews were merely putting them to a subtle test in order to obtain something against them, so that they would then have all the more reason to follow Me (for at that time it was even harder to leave the Jewish church for another than it is in this present time to leave the Roman Catholic church for a Reformed one)—they now kept a sharp eye on Me and began to deliberate among themselves, in the utmost secrecy, how they might destroy Me.
But the colonel, in whose house I now stayed for a couple of days in Capernaum, secretly told Me what was going on: how the Jewish priesthood was now incensed against Me and was secretly even seeking My life.
Then I said, ‘They will indeed yet achieve their evil aim against Me; but now is not yet the time. But so that they may not now have too much opportunity to exercise their revenge, I shall leave this city for another for a short time, and later, when these deniers of God have cooled down more in their fury, I shall come back here.’
The colonel, although he would have been infinitely glad to keep Me with him, approved of My intention, since he himself also came to feel no insignificant fear of these priests, scribes and Pharisees, knowing only too well how skilled this brood of vipers was at secretly denouncing people to Rome.
Then, very early the following morning, I left the colonel’s exceedingly hospitable house with the whole company following Me and went to the house of Simon Peter, which was near Bethabara, where John had formerly been active. But when I entered Peter’s simple yet by no means cramped house, his mother-in-law, a good and otherwise very hardworking and chaste girl in her twenties, lay in bed with a severe fever, suffering great distress and pain. Then Peter came to Me and asked Me to help her.
But I immediately went to her bed, took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Little daughter, get up and prepare us a midday meal instead of having to suffer here in bed!’
At once the fever left her, and the girl immediately got up and served us with great diligence and great attentiveness.