John 5

The Healing at Bethesda

1After this came a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2In Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, with five colonnades. 3In them lay a crowd of the sick — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 4For from time to time an angel would come down into the pool and stir the water; and the first one in after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease had held him.* 5One man there had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been that way a long time. He said to him, “Do you want to get well?” 7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to lower me into the pool when the water is stirred; and while I am on my way, someone else gets down ahead of me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” 9And the man was made well; he picked up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath, 10so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; you are not allowed to carry your mat.” 11He answered them, “The man who made me well — he is the one who told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?” 13But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd in that place. 14Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well now. Sin no more, or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went off and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16And for this the Jews began to persecute Jesus: he did such things on the Sabbath. 17But he answered them, “My Father is at work to this very moment, and I am at work as well.” 18At that the Jews were all the more determined to kill him: not only was he breaking the Sabbath, he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

The Authority of the Son

19So Jesus answered them, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son does the same. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so too the Son gives life to whom he wills. 22The Father judges no one; he has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes the one who sent me has eternal life. He does not come to judgment; he has passed from death into life. 25Very truly I tell you, the hour is coming — it is here now — when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, 27and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be amazed at this: the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29and come out — those who have done good, to a resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to a resurrection of judgment. 30I can do nothing on my own. I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.

The Witnesses to Jesus

31If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. 32There is another who testifies about me, and you know that the testimony he gives about me is true. 33You sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. 34Not that I depend on human testimony; I say this so that you may be saved. 35John was the lamp, burning and shining, and for a while you were glad to enjoy his light. 36But I have a testimony greater than John’s: the works the Father has given me to complete. These very works that I am doing testify about me — that the Father has sent me. 37And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, 38and his word finds no home in you, because you do not believe the one he sent. 39You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life — and it is they that testify about me; 40yet you refuse to come to me and have life. 41I do not accept glory from human beings, 42but I know you: you do not have the love of God within you. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if someone else comes in his own name, him you will receive. 44How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45Do not imagine that I will be your accuser before the Father. Your accuser is Moses — the very one you have set your hope on. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”