Old/New Testament
The hour has come
27 “Now my heart is troubled,” Jesus went on. “What am I going to say: ‘Father, save me from this moment’? No! It was because of this that I came to this moment. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
“I have glorified it,” came a voice from heaven, “and I will glorify it again.”
29 “That was thunder!” said the crowd, standing there listening.
“No,” said others. “It was an angel, talking to him.”
30 “That voice came for your sake, not mine,” replied Jesus. 31 “Now comes the judgment of this world! Now this world’s ruler is going to be thrown out! 32 And when I’ve been lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”
33 He said this in order to point to the kind of death he was going to die.
34 So the crowd spoke to him again.
“We heard in the law,” they said, “that the Messiah will last forever. How can you say that the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this ‘son of man’?”
35 “The light is among you a little while longer,” replied Jesus. “Keep walking while you have the light, in case the darkness overcomes you. People who walk in the dark don’t know where they’re going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may be children of light.”
With these words, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.
Glory and blindness
37 They didn’t believe in him, even though he had done so many signs in front of their eyes. 38 This was so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled:
Lord, who believed the story we told?
Your powerful arm—who saw it unveiled?
39 That’s why they couldn’t believe. As Isaiah again put it,
40 He has caused their eyes to be blind,
and caused their hearts to be hard;
so they wouldn’t see with their eyes,
or understand with their hearts,
or turn, so that I could heal them.
41 Isaiah said this because he saw his glory, and spoke about him.
42 Even so, however, quite a few of the rulers did believe in him. But, because of the Pharisees, they didn’t declare their faith, for fear of being put out of the synagogue. 43 This was because they loved the praise of humans more than the praise of God.
The final challenge
44 “Anyone who believes in me,” shouted Jesus in a loud voice, “doesn’t believe in me, but in the one who sent me! 45 Anyone who sees me sees the one who sent me! 46 I’ve come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me won’t need to stay in the dark.
47 “If anyone hears my words and doesn’t keep them, I’m not going to judge them. That wasn’t why I came. I came to save the world, not to judge it. 48 Anyone who rejects me and doesn’t hold on to my words has a judge. The word which I have spoken will judge them on the last day.
49 “I haven’t spoken on my own authority. The father who sent me gave me his own command about what I should say and speak. 50 And I know that his command is the life of the coming age. What I speak, then, is what the father has told me to speak.”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.