Book of Common Prayer

1 The Word of life always was living, even from the beginning. We heard him. We saw him with our own eyes. We looked at him, and we touched him with our own hands. We are writing to you about this Word of life.

² This life came to earth. We saw him, and we know about him. And we tell you about this life that lives for ever. This life was with the Father and came to us.

³ We tell you also what we have seen and heard. We tell you so that you also will belong with us. And we belong with the Father and the Son.

⁴ We write these things to you so that we all will be very happy.

⁵ God is like light and he is not dark at all. That is the message we heard from him. That is the message we are telling you.

⁶ Do we say that we belong with him? And at the same time, do we live in the dark? Then what we say is not true, and what we do is not right.

⁷ Do we live in the light, as God is in the light? Then we belong with others who belong to him. And the blood of the death of Jesus Christ makes us clean from all the wrong things we have done.

⁸ Do we say, `We have no wrong ways'? Then we are fooling ourselves, and we do not know what is true.

⁹ Let us tell God about our wrong ways. God can be trusted. He does what is right. He will forgive us for the wrong things we have done. He will make us clean from all that was wrong.

¹⁰ Do we say, `We have not done anything wrong'? This is like saying that God is not true. That means we do not accept God's word.

9 On his way out of the temple Jesus saw a man who had been born blind.

² His disciples asked Jesus, `Master, was this man born blind because of the wrong things he did, or was it the wrong things his parents did?'

³ Jesus answered, `It was not that he or his parents did any wrong thing. But it was so that people would see what God will do in him.

⁴ There is one who has sent me. I must do his work while it is still daylight. Night is coming. Then it will be too dark to work.

⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.'

⁶ When Jesus had said this, he spat on the ground. Then he put some of the wet dirt on the man's eyes.

⁷ And he said, `Go. wash your eyes in that water hole called Siloam.' (Siloam means Sent.) The man went and washed his eyes. After that, he was able to see.

⁸ His neighbours and other people had seen him when he was blind. They said, `Is not this the same man who used to sit here and beg?'

⁹ Some people said, `Yes, this is the same man.' Others said, `He is like that man.' But the man himself said, `I am that man.'

¹⁰ They asked him, `How is it that you can see now?'

¹¹ He answered them, `That man whose name is Jesus made some mud. He rubbed it on my eyes and told me to go and wash them in the water hole Siloam. And when I had washed my eyes, I could see.'

¹² `Where is the man?' they asked. He said, `I do not know.'

¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.

¹⁴ The day Jesus made the mud and healed the man was the Sabbath day.

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees also asked the man, `How is it that you can see now?' He answered them, `The man put mud on my eyes. I washed my eyes and now I can see.'

¹⁶ Then some of the Pharisees said, `This man is not from God. He does not obey the Sabbath day law.' The others said, `But how can a bad man do such a big work?' So the Pharisees did not agree together in what they thought about Jesus.

¹⁷ Then they asked the man who had been born blind, `What do you say about the man who healed you?' He answered, `I say he is a prophet from God.'