John 9-11

Complete Jewish Bible

9 As Yeshua passed along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His talmidim asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned — this man or his parents — to cause him to be born blind?” ³ Yeshua answered, “His blindness is due neither to his sin nor to that of his parents; it happened so that God’s power might be seen at work in him. ⁴ As long as it is day, we must keep doing the work of the One who sent me; the night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶ Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, put the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash off in the Pool of Shiloach!” (The name means “sent.”) So he went and washed and came away seeing.

⁸ His neighbors and those who previously had seen him begging said, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some said, “Yes, he’s the one”; while others said, “No, but he looks like him.” However, he himself said, “I’m the one.” ¹⁰ “How were your eyes opened?” they asked him. ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Yeshua made mud, put it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Shiloach and wash!’ So I went; and as soon as I had washed, I could see.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” and he replied, “I don’t know.”

¹³ They took the man who had been blind to the P’rushim. ¹⁴ Now the day on which Yeshua had made the mud and opened his eyes was Shabbat. ¹⁵ So the P’rushim asked him again how he had become able to see; and he told them, “He put mud on my eyes, then I washed, and now I can see.” ¹⁶ At this, some of the P’rushim said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep Shabbat.” But others said, “How could a man who is a sinner do miracles like these?” And there was a split among them. ¹⁷ So once more they spoke to the blind man: “Since you’re the one whose eyes he opened, what do you say about him?” He replied: “He is a prophet.”

¹⁸ The Judeans, however, were unwilling to believe that he had formerly been blind, but now could see, until they had summoned the man’s parents. ¹⁹ They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind; ²¹ but how it is that he can see now, we don’t know; nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him — he’s old enough, he can speak for himself!” ²² The parents said this because they were afraid of the Judeans, for the Judeans had already agreed that anyone who acknowledged Yeshua as the Messiah would be banned from the synagogue. ²³ This is why his parents said, “He’s old enough, ask him.”

²⁴ So a second time they called the man who had been blind; and they said to him, “Swear to God that you will tell the truth! We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “Whether he’s a sinner or not I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ “I already told you,” he answered, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Maybe you too want to become his talmidim?” ²⁸ Then they railed at him. “You may be his talmid,” they said, “but we are talmidim of Moshe! ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moshe, but as for this fellow — we don’t know where he’s from!” ³⁰ “What a strange thing,” the man answered, “that you don’t know where he’s from — considering that he opened my eyes! ³¹ We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners; but if anyone fears God and does his will, God does listen to him. ³² In all history no one has ever heard of someone’s opening the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do a thing!” ³⁴ “Why, you mamzer!” they retorted, “Are you lecturing us?” And they threw him out.

³⁵ Yeshua heard that they had thrown the man out. He found him and said, “Do you trust in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ “Sir,” he answered, “tell me who he is, so that I can trust in him.” ³⁷ Yeshua said to him, “You have seen him. In fact, he’s the one speaking with you now.” ³⁸ “Lord, I trust!” he said, and he kneeled down in front of him.

³⁹ Yeshua said, “It is to judge that I came into this world, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the P’rushim nearby heard this and said to him, “So we’re blind too, are we?” ⁴¹ Yeshua answered them, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you still say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

10 “Yes, indeed! I tell you, the person who doesn’t enter the sheep-pen through the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. ² But the one who goes in through the gate is the sheep’s own shepherd. ³ This is the one the gate-keeper admits, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep, each one by name, and leads them out. ⁴ After taking out all that are his own, he goes on ahead of them; and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. ⁵ They never follow a stranger but will run away from him, because strangers’ voices are unfamiliar to them.”

⁶ Yeshua used this indirect manner of speaking with them, but they didn’t understand what he was talking to them about. ⁷ So Yeshua said to them again, “Yes, indeed! I tell you that I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All those who have come before me have been thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. ⁹ I am the gate; if someone enters through me, he will be safe and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only in order to steal, kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, life in its fullest measure.

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand, since he isn’t a shepherd and the sheep aren’t his own, sees the wolf coming, abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf drags them off and scatters them. ¹³ The hired worker behaves like this because that’s all he is, a hired worker; so it doesn’t matter to him what happens to the sheep. ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd; I know my own, and my own know me — ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father — and I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep. ¹⁶ Also I have other sheep which are not from this pen; I need to bring them, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

¹⁷ “This is why the Father loves me: because I lay down my life — in order to take it up again! ¹⁸ No one takes it away from me; on the contrary, I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. This is what my Father commanded me to do.”

¹⁹ Again there was a split among the Judeans because of what he said. ²⁰ Many of them said, “He has a demon!” and “He’s meshugga! Why do you listen to him?” ²¹ Others said, “These are not the deeds of a man who is demonized — how can a demon open blind people’s eyes?”

²² Then came Hanukkah in Yerushalayim. It was winter, ²³ and Yeshua was walking around inside the Temple area, in Shlomo’s Colonnade. ²⁴ So the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, “How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us publicly!” ²⁵ Yeshua answered them, “I have already told you, and you don’t trust me. The works I do in my Father’s name testify on my behalf, ²⁶ but the reason you don’t trust is that you are not included among my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice, I recognize them, they follow me, ²⁸ and I give them eternal life. They will absolutely never be destroyed, and no one will snatch them from my hands. ²⁹ My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them from the Father’s hands. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

³¹ Once again the Judeans picked up rocks in order to stone him. ³² Yeshua answered them, “You have seen me do many good deeds that reflect the Father’s power; for which one of these deeds are you stoning me?” ³³ The Judeans replied, “We are not stoning you for any good deed, but for blasphemy — because you, who are only a man, are making yourself out to be God ^[a].” ³⁴ Yeshua answered them, “Isn’t it written in your Torah, ‘I have said, “You people are Elohim’ ”?^{[b] 35} If he called ‘elohim’ the people to whom the word of Elohim was addressed (and the Tanakh cannot be broken), ³⁶ then are you telling the one whom the Father set apart as holy and sent into the world, ‘You are committing blasphemy,’ just because I said, ‘I am a son of Elohim’?

³⁷ “If I am not doing deeds that reflect my Father’s power, don’t trust me. ³⁸ But if I am, then, even if you don’t trust me, trust the deeds; so that you may understand once and for all that the Father is united with me, and I am united with the Father.” ³⁹ One more time they tried to arrest him, but he slipped out of their hands.

⁴⁰ He went off again beyond the Yarden, where Yochanan had been immersing at first, and stayed there. ⁴¹ Many people came to him and said, “Yochanan performed no miracles, but everything Yochanan said about this man was true.” ⁴² And many people there put their trust in him.

11 There was a man who had fallen sick. His name was El‘azar, and he came from Beit-Anyah, the village where Miryam and her sister Marta lived. ² (This Miryam, whose brother El‘azar had become sick, is the one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) ³ So the sisters sent a message to Yeshua, “Lord, the man you love is sick.” ⁴ On hearing it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may receive glory through it.”

⁵ Yeshua loved Marta and her sister and El‘azar; ⁶ so when he heard he was sick, first he stayed where he was two more days; ⁷ then, after this, he said to the talmidim, “Let’s go back to Y’hudah.” ⁸ The talmidim replied, “Rabbi! Just a short while ago the Judeans were out to stone you — and you want to go back there?” ⁹ Yeshua answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a person walks during daylight, he doesn’t stumble; because he sees the light of this world. ¹⁰ But if a person walks at night, he does stumble; because he has no light with him.”

¹¹ Yeshua said these things, and afterwards he said to the talmidim, “Our friend El‘azar has gone to sleep; but I am going in order to wake him up.” ¹² The talmidim said to him, “Lord, if he has gone to sleep, he will get better.” ¹³ Now Yeshua had used the phrase to speak about El‘azar’s death, but they thought he had been talking literally about sleep. ¹⁴ So Yeshua told them in plain language, “El‘azar has died. ¹⁵ And for your sakes, I am glad that I wasn’t there, so that you may come to trust. But let’s go to him.” ¹⁶ Then T’oma (the name means “twin”) said to his fellow talmidim, “Yes, we should go, so that we can die with him!”

¹⁷ On arrival, Yeshua found that El‘azar had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Beit-Anyah was about two miles from Yerushalayim, ¹⁹ and many of the Judeans had come to Marta and Miryam in order to comfort them at the loss of their brother. ²⁰ So when Marta heard that Yeshua was coming, she went out to meet him; but Miryam continued sitting shiv‘ah in the house.

²¹ Marta said to Yeshua, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” ²³ Yeshua said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Marta said, “I know that he will rise again at the Resurrection on the Last Day.” ²⁵ Yeshua said to her, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life! Whoever puts his trust in me will live, even if he dies; ²⁶ and everyone living and trusting in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

²⁸ After saying this, she went off and secretly called Miryam, her sister: “The Rabbi is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ When she heard this, she jumped up and went to him. ³⁰ Yeshua had not yet come into the village but was still where Marta had met him; ³¹ so when the Judeans who had been with Miryam in the house comforting her saw her get up quickly and go out, they followed her, thinking she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

³² When Miryam came to where Yeshua was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Yeshua saw her crying, and also the Judeans who came with her crying, he was deeply moved and also troubled. ³⁴ He said, “Where have you buried him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Yeshua cried; ³⁶ so the Judeans there said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “He opened the blind man’s eyes. Couldn’t he have kept this one from dying?”

³⁸ Yeshua, again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying in front of the entrance. ³⁹ Yeshua said, “Take the stone away!” Marta, the sister of the dead man, said to Yeshua, “By now his body must smell, for it has been four days since he died!” ⁴⁰ Yeshua said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you keep trusting, you will see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they removed the stone. Yeshua looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I myself know that you always hear me, but I say this because of the crowd standing around, so that they may believe that you have sent me.” ⁴³ Having said this, he shouted, “El‘azar! Come out!” ⁴⁴ The man who had been dead came out, his hands and feet wrapped in strips of linen and his face covered with a cloth. Yeshua said to them, “Unwrap him, and let him go!” ⁴⁵ At this, many of the Judeans who had come to visit Miryam, and had seen what Yeshua had done, trusted in him.

⁴⁶ But some of them went off to the P’rushim and told them what he had done. ⁴⁷ So the head cohanim and the P’rushim called a meeting of the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? — for this man is performing many miracles. ⁴⁸ If we let him keep going on this way, everyone will trust in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both the Temple and the nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Kayafa, who was cohen gadol that year, said to them, “You people don’t know anything! ⁵⁰ You don’t see that it’s better for you if one man dies on behalf of the people, so that the whole nation won’t be destroyed.” ⁵¹ Now he didn’t speak this way on his own initiative; rather, since he was cohen gadol that year, he was prophesying that Yeshua was about to die on behalf of the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation alone, but so that he might gather into one the scattered children of God.

⁵³ From that day on, they made plans to have him put to death. ⁵⁴ Therefore Yeshua no longer walked around openly among the Judeans but went away from there into the region near the desert, to a town called Efrayim, and stayed there with his talmidim.

⁵⁵ The Judean festival of Pesach was near, and many people went up from the country to Yerushalayim to perform the purification ceremony prior to Pesach. ⁵⁶ They were looking for Yeshua, and as they stood in the Temple courts they said to each other, “What do you think? that he simply won’t come to the festival?” ⁵⁷ Moreover, the head cohanim and the P’rushim had given orders that anyone knowing Yeshua’s whereabouts should inform them, so that they could have him arrested.