Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

⁴³ After the two days^(A) he left for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)^{(B) 45} When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival,^(C) for they also had been there.

⁴⁶ Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.^(D) And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,^(E) he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

⁴⁸ “Unless you people see signs and wonders,”^(F) Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

⁴⁹ The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. ⁵¹ While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. ⁵² When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

⁵³ Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household^(G) believed.

⁵⁴ This was the second sign^(H) Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

The Healing at the Pool

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate^(I) a pool, which in Aramaic^(J) is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^{[4] [b] 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”^{(K) 9} At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,^{(L) 10} and so the Jewish leaders^(M) said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”^(N)

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning^(O) or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders^(P) that it was Jesus who had made him well.