Jesus and the Miracle of Many Fish

21 After this, Jesus appeared to his disciples again. It was by the Sea of Galilee. Here is what happened. ² Simon Peter and Thomas, who was also called Didymus, were there together. Nathanael from Cana in Galilee and the sons of Zebedee were with them. So were two other disciples. ³ “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them. They said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat. That night they didn’t catch anything.

⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore. But the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

⁵ He called out to them, “Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

⁶ He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat. There you will find some fish.” When they did, they could not pull the net into the boat. There were too many fish in it.

⁷ Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Simon Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Peter heard that, he put his coat on. He had taken it off earlier. Then he jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed in the boat. They were towing the net full of fish. The shore was only about 100 yards away. ⁹ When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals. There were fish on it. There was also some bread.

¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat. He dragged the net to shore. It was full of large fish. There were 153 of them. But even with that many fish the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them. He did the same thing with the fish. ¹⁴ This was the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

²⁵ Jesus also did many other things. What if every one of them were written down? I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.