Recorded by all three Synoptics (Mt 12:9–14, Mk 3:1–6, Lk 6:6–11). On the Sabbath day, Christ entered the synagogue and saw a man whose right hand was withered. The Pharisees watched 'whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.'
Knowing their thoughts, He set the man in the midst and addressed the whole assembly: 'I ask you, if it be lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy?' The Pharisees gave no answer. The Lord looked round about on them with anger 'being grieved for the blindness of their hearts,' and said to the man: 'Stretch forth thy hand.' He stretched it forth — and it was restored, whole as the other.
From this moment, the Pharisees and Herodians 'went out, and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him' (Mk 3:6). The first formal alliance against the Lord's life is provoked not by His teaching but by His healing of a withered hand on a Sabbath.