Chapter 5

¹After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheepgate a pool called in Hebrew Bethzatha, which has five colonnades. ³In these there used to lie a great number of people who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed. ⁵There was one man there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶Jesus saw him lying there, and finding that he had been in this condition for a long time, said to him,

“Do you want to get well?”

⁷The sick man answered,

“I have nobody, sir, to put me into the pool when the water stirs, but while I am getting down someone else steps in ahead of me.”

⁸Jesus said to him,

“Get up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

⁹And the man was immediately cured, and he picked up his mat and walked.

¹⁰Now it was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured,

“It is the Sabbath, and it is against the Law for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹But he answered,

“The man who cured me said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹²They asked him,

“Who was it that said to you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?”

¹³But the man who had been cured did not know who it was, for as there was a crowd there, Jesus had left the place. ¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the Temple, and said to him,

“See! You are well again. Give up sin, or something worse may happen to you.”

¹⁵The man went and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him. ¹⁶This was why the Jews used to persecute Jesus, because he did things like this on the Sabbath. ¹⁷But he answered them,

“My Father is still at work, and I work too.”

¹⁸On account of this the Jews were all the more eager to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but actually called God his Father, thus putting himself on an equality with God. ¹⁹So Jesus answered them,

“I tell you, the Son cannot do anything of his own accord, unless he sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does. ²⁰For the Father loves the Son and lets him see everything that he himself is doing, and he will let him see greater deeds than these, to make you wonder. ²¹For just as the Father awakens the dead and makes them come to life, the Son makes anyone whom he chooses come to life. ²²For the Father passes judgment on no one, but he has committed the judgment entirely to the Son, ²³so that all men may honor the Son just as much as they honor the Father. Whoever refuses to honor the Son refuses to honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴I tell you, whoever listens to my message and believes him who has sent me, possesses eternal life, and will not come to judgment, but has already passed out of death into life. ²⁵I tell you, the time is coming—it is here already!—when those who are dead will listen to the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen to it will live. ²⁶For just as the Father is self-existent, he has given self-existence to the Son, ²⁷and he has given him the authority to act as judge, because he is a son of man. ²⁸Do not be surprised at this, for the time is coming when all who are in their graves will listen to his voice, ²⁹and those who have done right will come out to resurrection and life, and those who have done wrong, to resurrection and judgment. ³⁰I cannot do anything of my own accord. I pass judgment just as I am told to do, and my judgment is just, for I am not seeking to do what I please, but what pleases him who has sent me.

³¹“If I testify to myself, my testimony is not true. ³²It is someone else who testifies to me, and I know that the testimony that he gives about me is true. ³³You yourselves sent to John, and he testified to the truth. ³⁴But the testimony that I accept is not from any man; I am only saying this that you may be saved. ³⁵He was the lamp that burned and shone, and you were ready to be gladdened for a while by his light. ³⁶But I have higher testimony than John’s, for the things that my Father has intrusted to me to accomplish, the very things that I am doing, are proof that my Father has sent me, ³⁷and my Father who has sent me has thus borne witness to me. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, ³⁸and you do not keep his message in your hearts, for you do not believe the messenger whom he has sent. ³⁹You pore over the Scriptures, for you think that you will find eternal life in them, and these very Scriptures testify to me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me for life. ⁴¹I do not accept any honor from men, ⁴²but I know well that you have not the love of God in your hearts. ⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you refuse to accept me. If someone else comes in his own name you will accept him. ⁴⁴Yet how can you believe in me, when you accept honor from one another, instead of seeking the honor that comes from the one God? ⁴⁵Do not suppose that I will accuse you to the Father. Moses is your accuser—Moses, on whom you have fixed your hopes! ⁴⁶For if you really believed Moses, you would believe me, for it was about me that he wrote. ⁴⁷But if you refuse to believe what he wrote, how are you ever to believe what I say?”