< John 5 >
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem a pool near the Sheep-gate, called in the Hebrew, Bethesda.
3 It has five colonnades. In these there used to lie a great crowd of sick people - blind, lame, paralyzed.
4
5 And there was one man there for thirty-eight years in his infirmity.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to get well?"
7 "Sir," answered the sick man, "I have no man to put me into the pool whenever the water is troubled; and while I am trying to come, some one else steps down before me."
8 "Rise," said Jesus, "take up your bed and go walking away."
9 Instantly the man became well, and he took up his bed and started to walk. Now it was Sabbath on that day;
10 so the Jews kept saying to the man who had been cured. "It is the Sabbath Day; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."
11 He replied, "The man who healed me told me to take up my bed and walk."
12 "Who is it," they asked, "that said to you, ‘take up your bed and go walking away’?"
13 But he who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had moved away, as there was a crowd in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus found him in the Temple, and said to him. "Look! You have become well. Do not go on sinning, lest a worse thing befall you."
15 The man went to and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well;
16 and because of this the Jews began to persecute Jesus, because he had done it on the Sabbath.
17 But he answered them, "My Father has continued working until now, and I am working too."
18 For this reason the Jews continued to seek the more eagerly to put him to death, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was actually speaking of God as his own Father, thus making himself of God’s equal.
19 So Jesus answered them in these words. "In solemn truth I tell that the Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does also.
20 "For the Father loves the Son, and shows him every thing that he himself is doing. And greater deeds than these will he show him, that you may wonder.
21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, even so the Son makes whom he will alive.
22 "The Father indeed does not judge any one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
23 "in order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor Son, does not honor the Father who sent him.
24 "I tell you solemnly that he who listens to my messages and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life. He will not come under condemnation, but has passed out of death into life. (aiōnios )
25 "Solemnly I tell you that the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live.
26 "For as the Father has life in himself, so also has he granted to the Son to have life in himself.
27 "And he has given him authority to pronounce judgment, because he is Son of man.
28 "Do not wonder at this, because an hour is coming in which all who are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth again;
29 "those who have done good into a resurrection of life, and those who have practised evil to a resurrection of condemnation.
30 "I can of my own self do nothing. As I listen, I judge, and my own judgment is just, because I am not seeking my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.
31 "If I bear testimony concerning myself, my testimony is not valid.
32 "Another bears testimony to me, and I know that the testimony which he bears concerning me is valid.
33 "You yourselves sent to John, and he has been and is a witness to the truth.
34 "(Though for myself I accept no witness from man; I only mention that you may be saved.)
35 "That man was the Lamp-burning and shining - and you were willing for a time rejoice in his light.
36 "But I have testimony greater than that of John; for the work which the Father has given me to bring to completion - the work which I am doing - bears testimony concerning me, that the Father has sent me.
37 "And the Father who sent me has himself borne testimony concerning me. None of you has heard his at any time or seen him,
38 nor had his word dwelling within you, because you do not believe him whom he sent.
39 "You are searching the Scriptures because you suppose that in tem you have eternal life; and though these are they that bear witness concerning me, (aiōnios )
40 "you will not come to me that you may have life.
41 "I am not receiving honor from men, but I know you,
42 "that you have not the love of God in yourselves.
43 "I am come in the name of my Father and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
44 "How can you believe when you receive glory from, one another, and have no desire for the glory which comes from the only God?
45 "Do not imagine that I shall accuse you to the Father. Moses is your accuser, on whom you build your hopes.
46 "For if you believed Moses you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
47 And if you do not believe his writings, how will you ever believe my words?"
