Read the Gospels in 40 Days
The healing of the disabled man
5 After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 In Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool which is called, in Hebrew, Bethesda. It has five porticoes, 3 where several sick people were lying. They were blind, lame and paralyzed.
5 There was a man who had been there, in the same sick state, for thirty-eight years. 6 Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been there a long time already.
“Do you want to get well?” he asked him.
7 “Well, sir,” the sick man replied, “I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool when the water gets stirred up. While I’m on my way there, someone else gets down before me.”
8 “Get up,” said Jesus, “pick up your mattress and walk!”
9 At once the man was healed. He picked up his mattress and walked.
God’s son breaks the sabbath!
The day all this happened was a sabbath. 10 So the Judaeans confronted the man who had been healed.
“It’s the sabbath!” they said. “You shouldn’t be carrying your mattress!”
11 “Well,” he replied, “the man who cured me told me to pick up my mattress and walk!”
12 “Oh, really?” they said. “And who is this man, who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 But the man who’d been healed didn’t know who it was. Jesus had gone away, and the place was crowded.
14 After this Jesus found the man in the Temple.
“Look!” he said. “You’re better again! Don’t sin anymore, or something worse might happen to you!”
15 The man went off and told the Judaeans that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 That was why the Judaeans began to persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath.
17 This was Jesus’ response to them.
“My father,” he said, “is going on working, and so am I!”
18 So for this reason the Judaeans were all the more eager to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but spoke of God as his own father, making himself equal to God.
The coming judgment
19 So Jesus made this response to them.
“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” he said. “The son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees the father doing. Whatever the father does, the son does too, and in the same way. 20 The father loves the son, you see, and shows him all the things that he’s doing. Yes: he will show him even greater things than these, and that’ll amaze you! 21 For, just as the father raises the dead and gives them life, in the same way the son gives life to anyone he chooses.
22 “The father doesn’t judge anyone, you see; he has handed over all judgment to the son, 23 so that everyone should honor the son just as they honor the father. Anyone who doesn’t honor the son doesn’t honor the father who sent him.
24 “I’m telling you the solemn truth: anyone who hears my word, and believes in the one who sent me, has the life of God’s coming age. Such a person won’t come into judgment; they will have passed out of death into life. 25 I’m telling you the solemn truth: the time is coming—in fact, it’s here already!—when the dead will hear the voice of God’s son, and those who hear it will live. 26 You see, just as the father has life in himself, in the same way he has given the son the privilege of having life in himself. 27 He has even given him authority to pass judgment, because he is the son of man.
28 “Don’t be surprised at this. The time is coming, you see, when everyone in the tombs will hear his voice. 29 They will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
The evidence in support of Jesus
30 “I can’t do anything on my own authority,” Jesus went on. “I judge on the basis of what I hear. And my judgment is just, because I’m not trying to carry out my own wishes, but the wishes of the one who sent me.
31 “If I give evidence about myself, my evidence isn’t true. 32 There is someone else who gives evidence about me, and I know that the evidence he brings about me is true. 33 You sent messengers to John, and he gave evidence about the truth. 34 Not that I need evidence from human beings; but I’m saying this so that you may be saved.
35 “John was a burning, bright lamp, and you were happy to celebrate in his light for a while. 36 But I have greater evidence on my side than that of John. The works which the father has given me to complete—these works, which I’m doing, will provide evidence about me, evidence that the father has sent me. 37 And the father who sent me has given evidence about me. You’ve never heard his voice; you’ve never seen his form. 38 What’s more, you haven’t got his word abiding in you, because you don’t believe in the one he sent.”
Jesus and Moses
39 “You study the Bible,” Jesus continued, “because you suppose that you’ll discover the life of God’s coming age in it. In fact, it’s the Bible which gives evidence about me! 40 But you won’t come to me so that you can have life.
41 “I’m not accepting glory from human beings; 42 but I know that you haven’t got the love of God within you. 43 I have come in the name of my father, and you won’t receive me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him! 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you’re not looking for the glory which comes from the one and only God?
45 “Don’t think that I’m going to accuse you to the father. There is someone who accuses you, namely Moses, the one you look to in hope! 46 You see, if you’d believed Moses, you would have believed me—because it was me he was writing about. 47 But if you don’t believe his writings, how are you going to believe my words?”
Feeding the five thousand
6 After this Jesus went away beside the sea of Galilee, that is, the sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was doing in healing the sick. 3 Jesus went up into the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 It was nearly time for the Passover, a Jewish festival.
5 Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming to him.
“Where are we going to buy bread,” he said to Philip, “so that they can have something to eat?” 6 (He said this to test him. He himself knew what he intended to do.)
7 “Even with six months’ pay,” replied Philip, “you wouldn’t be able to buy enough bread for each of them to have just a little!”
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, joined in.
9 “There’s a lad here,” he said, “who’s got five barley loaves and two fish. But what use are they with this many people?”
10 “Make the men sit down,” said Jesus.
There was a lot of grass where they were, so the men sat down, about five thousand in all. 11 So Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks and gave them to the people sitting down, and then did the same with the fish, as much as they wanted.
12 When they were satisfied, he called the disciples.
“Collect up the bits and pieces left over,” he said, “so that we don’t lose anything.”
13 So they collected it up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces of the five barley loaves left behind by the people who had eaten.
14 When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they said, “This really is the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” 15 So when Jesus realized that they were intending to come and seize him to make him king, he withdrew again, by himself, up the mountain.
Jesus walking on the water
16 When it was evening, Jesus’ disciples went down to the seashore. 17 They got into a boat, and went across the sea towards Capernaum. It was already getting dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 A strong wind blew up, and the sea began to get rough. 19 They had been rowing for about three or four miles when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, coming towards the boat. They were terrified.
20 But he spoke to them.
“It’s me!” he said. “Don’t be afraid!”
21 Then they were eager to take him into the boat; and at once the boat arrived at the land they had been making for.
22 The next day the crowd that had remained on the far side of the lake saw that there had only been the one boat there. They knew that Jesus hadn’t gone with his disciples, but that the disciples had set off by themselves. 23 But other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found him beside the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Bread from heaven
26 This was Jesus’ reply.
“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” he said. “You aren’t looking for me because you saw signs, but because you ate as much bread as you could. 27 You shouldn’t be working for perishable food, but for food that will last to the life of God’s coming age—the food which the son of man will give you, the person whom God the father has stamped with the seal of his approval.”
28 “What should we be doing,” they asked him, “so that we can be doing the work God wants?”
29 “This is the work God wants of you,” replied Jesus, “that you believe in the one he sent.”
30 “Well, then,” they said to him, “what sign are you going to do, so that we can see it and believe you? What work are you doing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; it says in the Bible that ‘he gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”
32 “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus replied. “It wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. It was my father who gave you the true bread from heaven. 33 God’s bread, you see, is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Master,” they said, “give us this bread—give it to us always!”
35 “I am the bread of life,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry! Anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty!”
The father’s will
36 “But I told you,” Jesus continued, “that you have indeed seen me—and still you don’t believe! 37 All that the father gives me will come to me; and I won’t reject anyone who comes to me, 38 because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 39 And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should lose nothing out of everything that he has given me, but that I should raise it up on the last day. 40 This is the will of my father, you see: that all who see the son and believe in him should have the life of God’s coming age; and I will raise them up on the last day.”
41 The Judaeans then grumbled about him because he had said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”
42 “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son?” they said. “We know his father and mother, don’t we? So how can he say ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Don’t grumble among yourselves,” answered Jesus. 44 “No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them—and I will raise them up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to what comes from the father, and learns from it, comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the father except the one who is from God; he has seen the father.”
Eating and drinking the son of man
47 “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus went on. “Anyone who believes in me has the life of God’s coming age. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors in the wilderness ate the manna, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that people can eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread, they will live forever. And the bread which I shall give is my flesh, given for the life of the world.”
52 This caused a squabble among the Judaeans.
“How can this fellow give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.
53 “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus replied. “If you don’t eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 Anyone who feasts upon my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of God’s coming age, and I will raise them up on the last day. 55 My flesh is true food, you see, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in them. 57 Just as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so the one who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven; it isn’t like the bread which the ancestors ate, and died. The one who eats this bread will share the life of God’s new age.”
59 He said this in the synagogue, while he was teaching in Capernaum.
Division among Jesus’ followers
60 When they heard this, many of Jesus’ disciples said, “This is difficult stuff! Who can bear to listen to it?”
61 Jesus knew in himself that his disciples were grumbling about what he’d said.
“Does this put you off?” he said. 62 “What if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before? 63 It’s the spirit that gives life; the flesh is no help. The words that I have spoken to you—they are spirit, they are life. 64 But there are some of you who don’t believe.”
Jesus knew from the beginning, you see, those who didn’t believe, and the one who was going to betray him.
65 “That’s why I said,” he went on, “that no one can come to me unless it is given to them by the father.”
66 From that time on, several of his disciples drew back, and no longer went about with him.
67 Jesus turned to the Twelve.
“You don’t want to go away too, do you?” he asked.
68 Simon Peter spoke up.
“Master,” he said, “who can we go to? You’re the one who’s got the life-giving words of the age to come! 69 We’ve come to believe it—we’ve come to know it!—that you are God’s holy one.”
70 “Well,” replied Jesus, “I chose you twelve, didn’t I? And one of you is an accuser!”
71 He was referring to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. He was one of the Twelve, and he was going to betray him.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.