The man who had been cured did not know who it was that had cured him, for many were standing near, and after healing the man Jesus had walked away without being noticed. Soon after, the man went up to the Temple to give thanks to God for his cure, and there he met his healer and learned for the first time his name. Jesus said to him at that time: "You are now free from the disease which for so many years has made you helpless. Do not sin any more against God, or something worse will come to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him. The leaders among the Jews, the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, were very angry at Jesus, because he had made this man well on the Sabbath and because he had told the man to carry his mat on that day. The rulers tried to stir up the people against Jesus, saying that he was a Sabbath-breaker, and nobody should listen to his words. But Jesus said to them, "My Father works on all days doing good to men; and I do only what he does." He meant to show them that God sends his sunshine and his rain every day in the week, causing the grass and the grain and the flowers to grow as much on the Sabbath as on other days; and that it was right for him and for every man to do good works, helping men and curing their sickness, on the Sabbath day. But his words only made the Jews all the more angry, because he had spoken of God as his Father, making himself (they said) equal with God. They would have killed him if they could, so great was their hate against him. Jesus did not stay long in Jerusalem at this visit. Soon after the feast he went again to his home at Capernaum. The Lord of the Sabbath CHAPTER 28 THE QUESTION whether Jesus was a Sabbath-breaker or not, arose again soon after he came back to Galilee. On a Sabbath day Jesus was walking with his disciples through the fields of grain. Some of the disciples were hungry, and as they walked picked the heads of the wheat, rubbed them in their hands, blew away the chaff and ate the kernels of grain. The law of the Israelites allowed anyone walking by a field of grain to help himself to all that he wished to eat, but forbade him to take any to his home. But to the Pharisees, who were very exact in their rules of keeping the Sabbath, to pluck the grain was the same as reaping it with a sickle, to carry it in the hand was the same as bearing a load, and to rub it in the hands was the same as thrashing; and to do these on the seventh day of the week was breaking the Sabbath. These were rules, not given by God, but made by the scribes; and Jesus had already taught his disciples to pay no attention to them. The Pharisees were constantly watching Jesus and his followers, to catch them, if possible, in doing or saying something that might be thought wrong. They said to Jesus: