They shall take up serpents

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. —Mark 16:17-18

 

These photos are from Brett Walker's flicker site and document images of people who have survived snake bites. He has also written a book called 'the snakebite survivors club'.
 

Taken as a literal translation of the bible snake handling is still practiced in its traditional home in the Appalachia mountain regions of Southeastern United States. I would love to be able to see this in reality.

Junior G. McCormick is a serpent-handling pastor from Georgia. He explains that, for him, handling snakes is simply following the gospel to the letter. "Other folks don't do this because their churches don't believe, or it's just something they're scared of," he said. "They come to that scripture but want to jump over that part because it's a deadly thing."