Jesus Goes to the Festival of Tabernacles

7 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want^[a] to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders^(A) there were looking for a way to kill him.^{(B) 2} But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles^(C) was near, ³ Jesus’ brothers^(D) said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. ⁴ No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” ⁵ For even his own brothers did not believe in him.^(E)

⁶ Therefore Jesus told them, “My time^(F) is not yet here; for you any time will do. ⁷ The world cannot hate you, but it hates me^(G) because I testify that its works are evil.^{(H) 8} You go to the festival. I am not^[b] going up to this festival, because my time^(I) has not yet fully come.” ⁹ After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.

¹⁰ However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. ¹¹ Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus^(J) and asking, “Where is he?”

¹² Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.”

Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.”^{(K) 13} But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.^(L)

Jesus Teaches at the Festival

¹⁴ Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.^{(A) 15} The Jews^(B) there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning^(C) without having been taught?”^(D)

¹⁶ Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.^{(E) 17} Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out^(F) whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. ¹⁸ Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory,^(G) but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. ¹⁹ Has not Moses given you the law?^(H) Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”^(I)

²⁰ “You are demon-possessed,”^(J) the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”

²¹ Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle,^(K) and you are all amazed. ²² Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision^(L) (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs),^(M) you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. ²³ Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? ²⁴ Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”^(N)

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^(A) a pool, which in Aramaic^(B) 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.”^{(C) 9} At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

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

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^(G) or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders^(H) that it was Jesus who had made him well.

⁷ But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance,^(A) but the Lord looks at the heart.”^(B)

Division Over Who Jesus Is

²⁵ At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?^{(A) 26} Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities^(B) really concluded that he is the Messiah?^{(C) 27} But we know where this man is from;^(D) when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”

²⁸ Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts,^(E) cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from.^(F) I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true.^(G) You do not know him, ²⁹ but I know him^(H) because I am from him and he sent me.”^(I)

³⁰ At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him,^(J) because his hour had not yet come.^{(K) 31} Still, many in the crowd believed in him.^(L) They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs^(M) than this man?”

³² The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

³³ Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time,^(N) and then I am going to the one who sent me.^{(O) 34} You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”^(P)

³⁵ The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered^(Q) among the Greeks,^(R) and teach the Greeks? ³⁶ What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?”^(S)

God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit

⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature,^(A) but not the wisdom of this age^(B) or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.^{(C) 7} No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery^(D) that has been hidden^(E) and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age^(F) understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.^{(G) 9} However, as it is written:

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed^(I) to us by his Spirit.^(J)

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts^(K) except their own spirit^(L) within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit^(M) of the world,^(N) but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom^(O) but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^{[b] 14} The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God^(P) but considers them foolishness,^(Q) and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit^(R) makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

But we have the mind of Christ.^(T)

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival,^(A) Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.^{(B) 38} Whoever believes^(C) in me, as Scripture has said,^(D) rivers of living water^(E) will flow from within them.”^{[a](F) 39} By this he meant the Spirit,^(G) whom those who believed in him were later to receive.^(H) Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.^(I)

⁴⁰ On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”^(J)

⁴¹ Others said, “He is the Messiah.”

Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee?^{(K) 42} Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants^(L) and from Bethlehem,^(M) the town where David lived?” ⁴³ Thus the people were divided^(N) because of Jesus. ⁴⁴ Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.^(O)

Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders

⁴⁵ Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

⁴⁶ “No one ever spoke the way this man does,”^(P) the guards replied.

⁴⁷ “You mean he has deceived you also?”^(Q) the Pharisees retorted. ⁴⁸ “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?^{(R) 49} No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

⁵⁰ Nicodemus,^(S) who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, ⁵¹ “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

⁵² They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”^(T)

¹⁶ Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.^{(A) 17} Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out^(B) whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

¹⁵ The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites.^(A) You must listen to him.