Knox Bible

1

After this came a Jewish feast, for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

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There is a pool in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, called in Hebrew Bethsaida, with five porches,

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under which a multitude of diseased folk used to lie, the blind, the lame, the disabled, waiting for a disturbance of the water.

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From time to time, an angel of the Lord came down upon the pool, and the water was stirred up; and the first man who stepped into the pool after the stirring of the water, recovered from whatever infirmity it was that oppressed him.✻

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There was one man there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.

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Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had waited a long time; Hast thou a mind, he asked, to recover thy strength?

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Sir, said the cripple, I have no one to let me down into the pool when the water is stirred; and while I am on my way, somebody else steps down before me.

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Jesus said to him, Rise up, take up thy bed, and walk.

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And all at once the man recovered his strength, and took up his bed, and walked. That day it was the sabbath:

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and the Jews said to the man who had been cured, It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.

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He answered them, The man who gave me back my strength told me himself, Take up thy bed, and walk.

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So they asked him, Who is this man who told thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?

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The cripple who had been healed did not know who it was; Jesus had drawn aside from so crowded a place.

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But afterwards when Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, Behold, thou hast recovered thy strength; do not sin any more, for fear that worse should befall thee,

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the man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had restored his strength.

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The Jews took occasion to rouse ill-will against Jesus for doing such things on the sabbath.

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And Jesus answered them, My Father has never ceased working, and I too must be at work.

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This made the Jews more determined than ever to make away with him, that he not only broke the sabbath, but spoke of God as his own Father, thereby treating himself as equal to God.

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And Jesus answered them thus: Believe me when I tell you this, The Son cannot do anything at his own pleasure, he can only do what he sees his Father doing; what the Father does is what the Son does in his turn.

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The Father loves the Son, and discloses to him all that he himself does. And he has greater doings yet to disclose to him, for your astonishment;

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just as the Father bids the dead rise up and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomsoever he will.

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So it is with judgement; the Father, instead of passing judgement on any man himself, has left all judgement to the Son,

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so that all may reverence the Son just as they reverence the Father; to deny reverence to the Son is to deny reverence to the Father who has sent him.

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Believe me when I tell you this, the man who listens to my words, and puts his trust in him who sent me, enjoys eternal life; he does not meet with rejection, he has passed over already from death to life.

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Believe me, the time is coming, nay, has already come, when the dead will listen to the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen to it will live.

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As the Father has within him the gift of life, so he has granted to the Son that he too should have within him the gift of life,

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and has also granted him power to execute judgement, since he is the Son of Man.

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Do not be surprised at that; the time is coming, when all those who are in their graves will hear his voice

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and will come out of them; those whose actions have been good, rising to new life, and those whose doings have been evil, rising to meet their sentence.

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I cannot do anything on my own authority; I decide as I am bidden to decide, and my decision is never unjust, because I am consulting the will of him who sent me, not my own.

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If I testify in my own behalf, that testimony of mine is worth nothing;

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there is another who testifies to me, and I know well that the testimony he bears me is worthy of trust.✻

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You yourselves sent a message to John, and he testified to the truth.

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(Not that I depend on human testimony; it is for your own welfare that I say this.)

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He, after all, was the lamp lit to shew you the way, and there was a time when you were willing enough to sun yourselves in his light.

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But the testimony I have is greater than John’s; the actions which my Father has enabled me to achieve, those very actions which I perform, bear me witness that it is the Father who has sent me.

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Nay, the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me. You have always been deaf to his voice, blind to the vision of him,✻

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and his word is not continually present in your hearts; that is why you will not trust one whom he has sent.

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You pore over the scriptures, thinking to find eternal life in them (and indeed, it is of these I speak as bearing witness to me):✻

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but you will not come to me, to find life.

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I do not mean that I look for honour from men,

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but that I can see you have no love of God in your hearts.

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I have come in my Father’s name, and you give me no welcome, although you will welcome some other, if he comes in his own name.

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How should you learn to believe, you who are content to receive honour from one another, and are not ambitious for the honour which comes from him, who alone is God?

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Do not suppose that it will be for me to accuse you before my Father; your accusation will come from Moses, the very man in whom you put your trust.

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If you believed Moses, you would believe me; it was of me that he wrote.

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But if you give no credence to his writings, how should you give credence to my words?