John 5:1-17

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

5 Later on there was a Jewish festival (feast) for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² Now there is in Jerusalem a pool near the Sheep Gate. This pool in the Hebrew is called Bethesda, having five porches (alcoves, colonnades, doorways).

³ In these lay a great number of sick folk—some blind, some crippled, and some paralyzed (shriveled up)—^[a]waiting for the bubbling up of the water.

⁴ For an angel of the Lord went down at appointed seasons into the pool and moved and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was cured of whatever disease with which he was afflicted.

⁵ There was a certain man there who had suffered with a deep-seated and lingering disorder for thirty-eight years.

⁶ When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, Do you want to become well? [Are you really in earnest about getting well?]

⁷ The invalid answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me.

⁸ Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!

⁹ Instantly the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked. But that happened on the Sabbath.

¹⁰ So the Jews kept saying to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and you have no right to pick up your bed [it is not lawful].

¹¹ He answered them, The ^[b]Man Who healed me and gave me back my strength, He Himself said to me, Pick up your bed and walk!

¹² They asked him, Who is the Man Who told you, Pick up your bed and walk?

¹³ Now the invalid who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had quietly gone away [had passed on unnoticed], since there was a crowd in the place.

¹⁴ Afterward, when Jesus found him in the temple, He said to him, See, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus Who had made him well.

¹⁶ For this reason the Jews began to persecute (annoy, torment) Jesus ^[c]and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, My Father has worked [even] until now, [He has never ceased working; He is still working] and I, too, must be at [divine] work.