Jesus and blindness, physical and spiritual

9 Later, as Jesus walked along he saw a man who had been blind from birth.

² “Master, whose sin caused this man’s blindness,” asked the disciples, “his own or his parents’?”

^3-5 “He was not born blind because of his own sin or that of his parents,” returned Jesus, “but to show the power of God at work in him. We must carry on the work of him who sent me while the daylight lasts. Night is coming, when no one can work. I am the world’s light as long as I am in it.”

^6-7 Having said this, he spat on the ground and made a sort of clay with the saliva. This he applied to the man’s eyes and said, “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.” (Siloam means “one who has been sent”.) So the man went off and washed and came home with his sight restored.

⁸ His neighbours and the people who had often seen him before as a beggar remarked, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?”

⁹ “Yes, that’s the one,” said some. Others said, “No, but he’s very like him.” But he himself said, “I’m the man all right!”

¹⁰ “Then how was your blindness cured?” they asked.

¹¹ “The man called Jesus made some clay and smeared it on my eyes,” he replied, “and then he said, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So off I went and washed—and that’s how I got my sight!”

¹² “Where is he now?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he returned.

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had expelled him and when he had found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

³⁶ “And who is he, sir?” the man replied. “Tell me, so that I can believe in him.”

³⁷ “You have seen him,” replied Jesus. “It is the one who is talking to you now.”

³⁸ “Lord, I do believe,” he said, and worshipped him.