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Jesus takes His disciples into one of the most miserable places they have ever seen. The suffering and impurity is frightening, but He comes to serve these precious people.

2-3 In Jerusalem they came upon a pool by the sheep gate surrounded by five covered porches. In Hebrew this place is called Bethesda.

Crowds of people lined the area, lying around the porches. All of these people were disabled in some way; some were blind, lame, paralyzed, or plagued by diseases[; and they were waiting for the waters to move.

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In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, [a]paralyzed, [b]waiting for the moving of the water.

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Footnotes

  1. John 5:3 withered
  2. John 5:3 NU omits the rest of v. 3 and all of v. 4.

In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and (A)paralyzed.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. John 5:3 Some manuscripts insert, wholly or in part, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.

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