Like many of the houses in Palestine, this house had a flat roof, with a stairway leading up to it. They placed their friend on a mat, carried him up the stairs, and cut a hole in the roof. After fastening a rope to each corner of the mat, they gently lowered it to the floor, right at Jesus' feet. Jesus was glad when he saw the faith they had in him. He looked at the helpless man, and said, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." There were scribes and Pharisees standing there, waiting, as usual, to find fault with Jesus. They began to talk among themselves. They said: "Who is this who is talking as if he were God? Such blasphemy! Who can forgive sins, except God himself?" But Jesus knew what they were saying, and he answered them: "Which do you think is easier--to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say to this man, 'Pick up your mat and walk away'? I will show you that I can do one as well as the other!" He turned to the paralyzed man and said, "Pick up your mat, and go on back to your house." The sick man got up from the floor, rolled up the mat and put it under his arm, and went home. As he walked, there was a song of praise to God in his heart. And many of the people who saw what had happened were so surprised that they did not know whether to be glad or to be afraid. But they all agreed on one thing. They said, "We have seen strange things today!" [Illustration] Nothing that Jesus did seemed to please the Pharisees. But there was one thing that made them especially angry. He was not so careful as they thought he ought to be about keeping the Law. Now the Law meant everything to the Pharisees. They were so much in earnest about keeping God's Law that they were not satisfied with what was in the Scriptures. They followed many rules which had been made up since the Scriptures were written. Unless a man kept all these rules, it did not matter to the Pharisees how much good he did. Jesus was always getting into trouble with them about the Sabbath. The Pharisees had a list of thirty-nine different kinds of work that nobody was allowed to do on the Sabbath Day. This list included so much that unless a Jew was careful, he would be likely to break the Sabbath without even knowing it. If he tied a knot that could be untied with one hand, that was all right; but if he took two hands to untie it, then he had broken the Sabbath. He even had to be careful about sitting in a chair, for if he happened to drag his chair across the dirt floor the Pharisees said that he was plowing, which was a great sin on the Sabbath Day. It was forbidden to make a fire on the Sabbath. And so, if a woman wanted hot food, she had to cook it the day before, and keep it warm. But that did not mean that she could set it on a stove. For the stove might get hotter than it was, and make the food hotter, and that was just the same as making a fire. The only safe way to keep a meal hot was to wrap the dishes in cloth or pigeon feathers.