Read the Gospels in 40 Days
Up to Jerusalem
7 After this, Jesus moved around in Galilee. He did not want to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to find a way to kill him.
2 Now the Jewish Festival of Shelters[a] was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “You should leave here and go to Judea so your disciples there can also see the works you are doing. 4 Indeed, no one acts in secret who wants to be known in public. If you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
6 So Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not arrived yet, but any time is the right time for you. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the festival. I am not going up to this festival yet,[b] because the right time for me has not yet arrived.”
9 After he said this, he stayed in Galilee. 10 However, after his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up, not openly but in a private way.
At the Festival of Shelters[c]
11 At the festival, the Jews kept looking for him. They asked, “Where is he?” 12 And there was widespread whispering about him in the crowds. Some were saying, “He’s a good man.” Others were saying, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 Yet no one spoke openly about him for fear of the Jews.
14 When the festival was already half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach. 15 The Jews were amazed and asked, “How does this man know what is written without being instructed?”
16 Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but it comes from him who sent me. 17 If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or if I speak on my own. 18 The one who speaks on his own is seeking his own glory. But he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him—that is the one who is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you does what the law tells you. Why are you trying to kill me?”
20 “You have a demon!” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you are all amazed. 22 Consider this: Because Moses has given you circumcision (not that it comes from Moses, but from the fathers), you circumcise a man even on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry at me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by outward appearance. Instead make a right judgment.”
25 Some of the people from Jerusalem were saying, “Isn’t this the man they want to kill? 26 Yet, look! He’s speaking openly, and they don’t say a thing to him. Certainly the rulers have not concluded that he is the Christ, have they? 27 But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”
28 Then Jesus called out as he was teaching in the temple courts, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is real. You do not know him. 29 I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.”
30 So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.
31 But many in the crowd believed in him and asked, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more miraculous signs than this man, will he?”
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about him, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent guards to arrest him.
33 Then Jesus said, “I am going to be with you only a little while longer. Then I am going away to the one who sent me. 34 You will be looking for me and will not find me, and where I am going to be, you cannot come.”
35 Then the Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? He does not intend to go to the Jews scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will be looking for me and will not find me, and where I am going to be, you cannot come’?”
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and called out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38 As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from deep within the person who believes in me.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive. For the Holy[d] Spirit had not yet come, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
40 After hearing his words, some of the people said, “This is truly the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Surely the Christ does not come from Galilee, does he? 42 Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Christ comes from David’s descendants and from the little town of Bethlehem where David lived?” 43 So the people were divided because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
45 Then the guards came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 The guards answered, “No one ever spoke the way this man does!”
47 So the Pharisees answered them, “You have not been deceived too, have you? 48 Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, which does not know the law, is cursed!”
50 One of them, Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus earlier, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man before we hear from him and find out what he’s doing?”
52 “You are not from Galilee too, are you?” they replied. “Search and you will see that a prophet does not come from Galilee.”
53 Then each of them went home.[e]
The Adulteress
8 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning, he came back into the temple courts. And all the people kept coming to him. He sat down and taught them.
3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and had her stand in the center. 4 “Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5 In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 They asked this to test him, so that they might have evidence to accuse him.
Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. 7 But when they kept on asking him for an answer, he stood up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard this, they went away one by one, beginning with the older men. Jesus was left alone with the woman in the center. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, Lord,” she answered.
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”
Jesus Is the Light of the World
12 When Jesus spoke to them again, he said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You testify about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.”
14 “Even if I testify about myself,” Jesus replied, “my testimony is valid, because I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I came from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh. I am not judging anyone. 16 But even if I were to judge, my judgment would be true, because I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. 17 Even in your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is valid. 18 I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your Father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”
20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the offering box. But no one arrested him, because his time had not arrived yet.
21 So he told them again, “I am going away. You will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”
22 So the Jews asked, “He won’t kill himself, will he, because he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
23 “You are from below,” he told them. “I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. 24 That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am the one, you will die in your sins.”
25 “Who are you?” they asked.
Jesus replied, “What I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have many things to say and to judge concerning you. But the one who sent me is true. And what I heard from him, these are the things I am telling the world.” 27 They did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father.
28 So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one, and that I do nothing on my own. But I speak exactly as the Father taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.”
30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. 32 You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 “We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?”
34 Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. 35 But a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. 37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because there is no place for my word in you. 38 I am telling you what I have seen at the side of the Father. As for you, you do what you have heard[f] at the side of your father.”
39 “Our father is Abraham!” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” Jesus told them, “you would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard at the side of God. Abraham did not do this. 41 You are doing the works of your father.”
“We were not born of sexual immorality!” they said. “We have one Father: God.”
42 Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and I am here. Indeed, I have not come on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand my message? It is because you are not able to listen to my word. 44 You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not remain standing in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks from what is his, because he is a liar and the father of lying. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Who of you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God listens to what God says. The reason you do not listen is that you do not belong to God.”
48 The Jews responded, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
49 Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon. On the contrary, I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. 50 I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Amen, Amen, I tell you: If anyone holds on to my word, he will certainly never see death.”
52 So the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets. Yet you say, ‘If anyone holds on to my word, he will certainly never taste death.’ 53 You are not greater than our father, Abraham, are you? He died. And the prophets died. Who do you think you are?”
54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, about whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ 55 Yet you do not really know him, but I do know him. If I said, ‘I do not know him,’ I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I hold on to his word. 56 Your father Abraham was glad that he would see my day. He saw it and rejoiced.”
57 The Jews replied, “You aren’t even fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Before Abraham was born, I am.” 59 Then they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden and left the temple area.[g]
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.