Old/New Testament

²⁴ The Judaeans surrounded him.

“How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense?” they asked. “If you are the Messiah, say so out loud!”

²⁵ “I told you,” replied Jesus, “and you didn’t believe. The works which I’m doing in my father’s name give evidence about me. ²⁶ But you don’t believe, because you don’t belong to my sheep.

²⁷ “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them the life of the coming age. They will never, ever perish, and nobody can snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and nobody can snatch them out of my father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the father are one.”

Blasphemy!

³¹ So the Judaeans once more picked up stones to stone him.

³² “I’ve shown you many fine deeds from the father,” Jesus replied to them. “Which of these deeds are you stoning me for?”

³³ “We’re not stoning you for good deeds,” replied the Judaeans, “but because of blasphemy! Here you are, a mere man, and you’re making yourself into God!”

³⁴ “It’s written in your law, isn’t it,” replied Jesus to them, “ ‘I said, you are gods?’ ³⁵ Well, if the law calls people ‘gods,’ people to whom God’s word came (and you can’t set the Bible aside), ³⁶ how can you accuse someone of blasphemy when the father has placed him apart and sent him into the world, and he says, ‘I am the son of God’?

³⁷ “If I’m not doing the works of my father, don’t believe me. ³⁸ But if I am doing them, well—even if you don’t believe me, believe the works! That way you will know and grasp that the father is in me, and I am in the father.”

³⁹ So again they tried to arrest him. But Jesus managed to get away from them.

⁴⁰ He went off once more across the Jordan, to the place where John had been baptizing at the beginning, and he stayed there. ⁴¹ Several people came to him.

“John never did any signs,” they said, “but everything that John said about this man was true.”

⁴² And many believed in him there.