John 5

Moffatt^{(i) 1} After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now in Jerusalem there is a bath beside the sheep-pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethzatha; it has five porticoes, ³ where a crowd of invalids used to lie, the blind, the lame, and folk with shrivelled limbs [waiting for the water to bubble. ⁴ For an angel used to descend from time to time into the bath, and disturb the water; whereupon the first person who stepped in after the water was disturbed was restored to health, no matter what disease he had been afflicted with]. ⁵ Now one man was there, whose illness had lasted thirty-eight years. ⁶ Jesus saw him lying, and knowing he had been ill for a long while he said to him, "Do you want your health restored?" ⁷ The invalid replied, "Sir, I have nobody to put me into the bath, when the water is disturbed; and while I am getting down myself, someone else gets in before me." ⁸ Jesus said to him, "Get up, lift your mat, and walk." ⁹ And instantly the man got well, lifted his mat, and started to walk. Now it was the sabbath on that day. ¹⁰ So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "This is the sabbath, you have no right to be carrying your mat." ¹¹ He replied, "But the man who healed me, he told me, 'Lift your mat and walk'." ¹² They questioned him, "Who was it that told you, 'Lift it and walk'?" ¹³ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for (owing to the crowd on the spot) Jesus had slipped away. ¹⁴ Later on Jesus met him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well and strong; commit no more sins, in case something worse befalls you." ¹⁵ Off went the man and told the Jews it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did things like this on the sabbath. ¹⁷ The reply of Jesus was, "As my Father has continued working to this hour, so I work too." ¹⁸ But this only made the Jews more eager to kill him, because he not merely broke the sabbath but actually spoke of God as his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. ¹⁹ So Jesus made this answer to them: "Truly, truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, nothing but what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, the Son also does the same. ²⁰ The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he is doing himself. He will show him still greater deeds than these, to make you wonder; ²¹ for as the Father raises the dead and makes them live, so the Son makes anyone live whom he chooses. ²² Indeed the Father passes judgment on no one; he has committed the judgment which determines life or death entirely to the Son, ²³ that all men may honour the Son as they honour the Father. (He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.) ²⁴ Truly, truly I tell you, he who listens to my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he will incur no sentence of judgment, he has already passed from death across to life. ²⁵ Truly, truly I tell you, the time is coming, it has come already, when the dead will listen to the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen will live; ²⁶ for as the Father has life in himself, so too he has granted the Son to have life in himself, ²⁷ and also granted him authority to act as judge, since he is Son of man. ²⁸ Do not wonder at this; for there is a time coming when all who are in the tombs will listen to his voice ²⁹ and come out, the doers of good to be raised to life, ill-doers to be raised for the sentence of judgment. ³⁰ I can do nothing of my own accord; I pass judgment on men as I am taught by God, and my judgment is just, because my aim is not my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³¹ If I testify to myself, then my evidence is not valid; ³² I have Another to bear testimony to me, and I know the evidence he bears for me is valid. ³³ You sent to John, and he bore testimony to the truth ³⁴ (though I accept no testimony from man — I only speak of this testimony, that you may be saved); ³⁵ he was a burning and a shining lamp, and you chose to rejoice for a while in his light. ³⁶ But I possess a testimony greater than that of John, for the deeds which the Father has granted me to accomplish, the very deeds on which I am engaged, are my testimony that the Father has sent me. ³⁷ The Father who sent me has also borne testimony to me himself; but his voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, ³⁸ his word you have not kept with you, because you do not believe him whom he sent. ³⁹ You search the scriptures, imagining you possess eternal life in their pages — and they do testify to me — ⁴⁰ but you refuse to come to me for life. ⁴¹ I accept no credit from men, ⁴² but I know there is no love to God in you; ⁴³ here am I, come in the name of my Father, and you will not accept me: let someone else come in his own name, and you will accept him! ⁴⁴ How can you believe, you who accept credit from one another instead of aiming at the credit which comes from the only God? ⁴⁵ Do not imagine I am going to accuse you to the Father; Moses is your accuser, Moses who is your hope! ⁴⁶ For if you believed Moses you would believe me, since it was of me that he wrote. ⁴⁷ But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you ever believe what I say?"