Mark 2:21-22

2:21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. 2:22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; ¹  otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be destroyed. Instead new wine is poured into new wineskins.” ² 

Mark 3:27

3:27 But no one is able to enter a strong man’s ³  house and steal his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can thoroughly plunder his house. ⁴ 

Mark 5:4

5:4 For his hands and feet had often been bound with chains and shackles, ⁵  but ⁶  he had torn the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Mark 6:31

6:31 He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat).

Mark 8:17

8:17 When he learned of this, ⁷  Jesus said to them, “Why are you arguing ⁸  about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Have your hearts been hardened?

Mark 10:29

10:29 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, ⁹  there is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel

Mark 12:19

12:19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man ¹⁰  must marry ¹¹  the widow and father children ¹²  for his brother.’ ¹³ 

Mark 12:32

12:32 The expert in the law said to him, “That is true, Teacher; you are right to say that he is one, and there is no one else besides him. ¹⁴ 

Mark 12:34

12:34 When Jesus saw that he had answered thoughtfully, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Then no one dared any longer to question him.

Mark 14:25

14:25 I tell you the truth, ¹⁵  I will no longer drink of the fruit ¹⁶  of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

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¹ sn Wineskins were bags made of skin or leather, used for storing wine in NT times. As the new wine fermented and expanded, it would stretch the new wineskins. Putting new (unfermented) wine in old wineskins, which had already been stretched, would result in the bursting of the wineskins.

² sn The meaning of the saying new wine is poured into new skins is that the presence and teaching of Jesus was something new and signaled the passing of the old. It could not be confined within the old religion of Judaism, but involved the inauguration and consummation of the kingdom of God.

³ sn The strong man here pictures Satan.

⁴ sn Some see the imagery here as similar to Eph 4:7-10, although no opponents are explicitly named in that passage. Jesus has the victory over Satan. Jesus’ acts of healing mean that the war is being won and the kingdom is coming.

⁵ tn Grk “he had often been bound with chains and shackles.” “Shackles” could also be translated “fetters”; they were chains for the feet.

⁶ tn Grk “and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

⁷ tn Or “becoming aware of it.”

⁸ tn Or “discussing.”

⁹ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “his brother”; but this would be redundant in English with the same phrase “his brother” at the end of the verse, so most modern translations render this phrase “the man” (so NIV, NRSV).

¹¹ tn The use of ἵνα (Jina) with imperatival force is unusual (BDF §470.1).

¹² tn Grk “raise up seed” (an idiom for fathering children).

¹³ sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.

¹⁴ sn A quotation from Deut 4:35.

¹⁵ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

¹⁶ tn Grk “the produce” (“the produce of the vine” is a figurative expression for wine).