The Healing at the Pool

5 Later on, there was another^[a] festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem is a pool called Bethesda^[b] in Hebrew. It has five colonnades, ³ and under these a large number of sick people were lying—blind, lame, or paralyzed—waiting for the movement of the water.^{[c] 4} At certain times an angel of the Lord would go down into the pool and stir up the water, and whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.^[d]

⁵ One particular man was there who had been ill for 38 years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ The sick man answered him, “Sir, I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I’m trying to get there, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

⁸ Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” ⁹ The man immediately became well, and he picked up his mat and started walking. Now that day was a Sabbath.

¹⁰ So the Jewish leaders^[e] told the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.

¹¹ But he answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?”

¹³ But the one who had been healed did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away from the crowd in that place. ¹⁴ Later on, Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Look! You have become well. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went off and told the Jewish leaders^[f] that it was Jesus who had made him well.