It begins with Jesus' prediction that "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power".

It immediately follows Jesus' statement of "... when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38) in the preceding chapter.

Suddenly, Jesus' clothes become dazzingly white,[a] "... whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them",[10] and Elijah and Moses appear.

The disciples are stunned: for the first time, Mark uses the term Rabbi,[11] and they ask what they should do and offer to put up shelters or 'tabernacles' for the assembled trio.

This whole passage has echoes of Exodus 24, where clouds covered Mount Sinai for six days before Moses went up to receive the Ten Commandments.

The original Greek uses the word metamorphothe which was translated into Latin as Trans Figura, the changing of appearance or of the body itself.

As Jesus returns, the crowd are "amazed" at him: the New Revised Standard Version translates as "they were ... overcome with awe",[14] suggesting that his appearance "still retained traces of His transfiguration-glory".

The boy has a mute spirit and "foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid" - symptoms of epilepsy, which Matthew states to be the case.

Jesus heals the boy: when asked by the disciples privately why they could not cast it out, he replies "This kind can come out only through prayer and fasting" (verse 29).

[16] Jesus tells his entire group again that the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men, killed, and after three days he will rise again.

[13] Theologian Marvin Vincent notes that the Greek reads "ἐδίδασκεν" (edidasken), and that the Revised Version would have done better to give the force of the imperfect here: He was teaching.

William Robertson Nicoll notes that "they had heard the statement before, and had not forgotten the fact, and their Master had spoken too explicitly for them to be in any doubt as to His meaning.

They do not answer, because they had been arguing about who was, or who would be, the greatest disciple, possibly because Jesus only took three of them with him up the mountain [19] and the remaining nine could not cure the boy.

[20] Jesus already knows what they had been talking about, however, and he summons the twelve, sits down with them (καθίσας, kathisas, indicating that Jesus takes His seat in a deliberate attempt to school the disciples) [13] and instructs them: He takes a child (verse 36, but verse 35 in the Vulgate arrangement) in his arms and says whoever welcomes children welcomes him and therefore God.

He then gives one of the most forceful condemnations of sin in the Bible (see Stumbling block): The text quotes the final verse of the Book of Isaiah: The Pulpit Commentary observes that the bodies cast into hell "could not be at the same time burnt with fire and eaten by worms".

[24] De Bruin has argued that Jesus's command is meant to be literal, and it is a method of dealing with demons that have gained a foothold in a person.

Matthew has the Transfiguration and the possessed boy followed by a slightly altered and expanded scene in Capernaum in chapters 17 and 18.