But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”


He answered, “I tell you, if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out!”


Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, he wept over it,


saying, “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.


For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and surround you and close in on you from every side.


They will demolish you – you and your children within your walls – and they will not leave within you one stone on top of another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”


Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling things there,


saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of robbers!”


Jesus was teaching daily in the temple courts. The chief priests and the experts in the law and the prominent leaders among the people were seeking to assassinate him,


but they could not find a way to do it, for all the people hung on his words.


Now one day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the gospel, the chief priests and the experts in the law with the elders came up


and said to him, “Tell us: By what authority are you doing these things? Or who it is who gave you this authority?”


He answered them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell me:


John’s baptism – was it from heaven or from people?”


So they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’


But if we say, ‘From people,’ all the people will stone us, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.”


So they replied that they did not know where it came from.


Then Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by whose authority I do these things.”


Then he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey for a long time.


When harvest time came, he sent a slave to the tenants so that they would give him his portion of the crop. However, the tenants beat his slave and sent him away empty-handed.


So he sent another slave. They beat this one too, treated him outrageously, and sent him away empty-handed.


So he sent still a third. They even wounded this one, and threw him out.


Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my one dear son; perhaps they will respect him.’


But when the tenants saw him, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir; let’s kill him so the inheritance will be ours!’


So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?


He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “May this never happen!”


But Jesus looked straight at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?


Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.”


Then the experts in the law and the chief priests wanted to arrest him that very hour, because they realized he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.


Then they watched him carefully and sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They wanted to take advantage of what he might say so that they could deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.


Thus they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach correctly, and show no partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.


Is it right for us to pay the tribute tax to Caesar or not?”


But Jesus perceived their deceit and said to them,


“Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” They said, “Caesar’s.”


So he said to them, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”


Thus they were unable in the presence of the people to trap him with his own words. And stunned by his answer, they fell silent.


Now some Sadducees (who contend that there is no resurrection) came to him.


They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, that man must marry the widow and father children for his brother*.


Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died without children.


The second


and then the third married her, and in this same way all seven died, leaving no children.


Finally the woman died too.


In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For all seven had married her.”


So Jesus said to them, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.


But those who are regarded as worthy to share in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.


In fact, they can no longer die, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection.


But even Moses revealed that the dead are raised in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.


Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live before him.”


Then some of the experts in the law answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well!”


For they did not dare any longer to ask him anything.


But he said to them, “How is it that they say that the Christ is David’s son?


For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand,


until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’


If David then calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”


As all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples,


“Beware of the experts in the law. They like walking around in long robes, and they love elaborate greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.


They devour widows’ property, and as a show make long prayers. They will receive a more severe punishment.”


Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box.


He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.


He said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.


For they all offered their gifts out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on.”


Now while some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and offerings, Jesus said,


“As for these things that you are gazing at, the days will come when not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down!”


So they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that these things are about to take place?”


He said, “Watch out that you are not misled. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them!


And when you hear of wars and rebellions, do not be afraid. For these things must happen first, but the end will not come at once.”


Then he said to them, “Nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.


There will be great earthquakes, and famines and plagues in various places, and there will be terrifying sights and great signs from heaven.


But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you, handing you over to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.


This will be a time for you to serve as witnesses.


Therefore be resolved not to rehearse ahead of time how to make your defense.


For I will give you the words along with the wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.


You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will have some of you put to death.


You will be hated by everyone because of my name.


Yet not a hair of your head will perish.


By your endurance you will gain your lives.


“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.


Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who are inside the city must depart. Those who are out in the country must not enter it,


because these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.


Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people.


They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away as captives among all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.


“And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth nations will be in distress, anxious over the roaring of the sea and the surging waves.


People will be fainting from fear and from the expectation of what is coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.


Then they will see the Son of Man arriving in a cloud with power and great glory.


But when these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”


Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the other trees.


When they sprout leaves, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near.


So also you, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.


I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.


Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.


“But be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap.


For it will overtake all who live on the face of the whole earth.


But stay alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that must happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”


So every day Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, but at night he went and stayed on the Mount of Olives.


And all the people came to him early in the morning to listen to him in the temple courts.


Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching.


The chief priests and the experts in the law were trying to find some way to execute Jesus, for they were afraid of the people.


Then Satan entered Judas, the one called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.


He went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers of the temple guard how he might betray Jesus, handing him over to them.


They were delighted and arranged to give him money.


So Judas agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus when no crowd was present.


Then the day for the feast of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.


Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us to eat.”


They said to him, “Where do you want us to prepare it?”


He said to them, “Listen, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters,


and tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’


Then he will show you a large furnished room upstairs. Make preparations there.”


So they went and found things just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.


Now when the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table and the apostles joined him.


And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.


For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”


Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves.


For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”


Then he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”


And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.


“But look, the hand of the one who betrays me is with me on the table.


For the Son of Man is to go just as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”


So they began to question one another as to which of them it could possibly be who would do this.


A dispute also started among them over which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.


So Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’


Not so with you; instead the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.


For who is greater, the one who is seated at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.


“You are the ones who have remained with me in my trials.


Thus I grant to you a kingdom, just as my Father granted to me,


that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.


“Simon, Simon, pay attention! Satan has demanded to have you all, to sift you like wheat,


but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”


But Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death!”


Jesus replied, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.”


Then Jesus said to them, “When I sent you out with no money bag, or traveler’s bag, or sandals, you didn’t lack anything, did you?” They replied, “Nothing.”


He said to them, “But now, the one who has a money bag must take it, and likewise a traveler’s bag too. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.


For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me is being fulfilled.”


So they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” Then he told them, “It is enough.”


Then Jesus went out and made his way, as he customarily did, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.


When he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”


He went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed,


“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.”


[Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.


And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.]


When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, exhausted from grief.


So he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you will not fall into temptation!”


While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd appeared, and the man named Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He walked up to Jesus to kiss him.


But Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”


When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said, “Lord, should we use our swords?”


Then one of them struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.


But Jesus said, “Enough of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.


Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come out to get him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs like you would against an outlaw?


Day after day when I was with you in the temple courts, you did not arrest me. But this is your hour, and that of the power of darkness!”


Then they arrested Jesus, led him away, and brought him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance.


When they had made a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.


Then a slave girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight, stared at him and said, “This man was with him too!”


But Peter denied it: “Woman, I don’t know him!”


Then a little later someone else saw him and said, “You are one of them too.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”


And after about an hour still another insisted, “Certainly this man was with him, because he too is a Galilean.”


But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” At that moment, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed.


Then the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.”


And he went outside and wept bitterly.


Now the men who were holding Jesus under guard began to mock him and beat him.


They blindfolded him and asked him repeatedly, “Prophesy! Who hit you?”


They also said many other things against him, reviling him.


When day came, the council of the elders of the people gathered together, both the chief priests and the experts in the law. Then they led Jesus away to their council


and said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,


and if I ask you, you will not answer.


But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”


So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?” He answered them, “You say that I am.”


Then they said, “Why do we need further testimony? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!”


Then the whole group of them rose up and brought Jesus before Pilate.


They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man subverting our nation, forbidding us to pay the tribute tax to Caesar and claiming that he himself is Christ, a king.”


So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He replied, “You say so.”


Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.”


But they persisted in saying, “He incites the people by teaching throughout all Judea. It started in Galilee and ended up here!”


Now when Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.


When he learned that he was from Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who also happened to be in Jerusalem at that time.


When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some miraculous sign.


So Herod questioned him at considerable length; Jesus gave him no answer.


The chief priests and the experts in the law were there, vehemently accusing him.


Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, dressing him in elegant clothes, Herod sent him back to Pilate.


That very day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other, for prior to this they had been enemies.


Then Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people,


and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. When I examined him before you, I did not find this man guilty of anything you accused him of doing.


Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, he has done nothing deserving death.


I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”


But they all shouted out together, “Take this man away! Release Barabbas for us!”


(This was a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city, and for murder.)


Pilate addressed them once again because he wanted to release Jesus.


But they kept on shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!”


A third time he said to them, “Why? What wrong has he done? I have found him guilty of no crime deserving death. I will therefore flog him and release him.”


But they were insistent, demanding with loud shouts that he be crucified. And their shouts prevailed.


So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted.


He released the man they asked for, who had been thrown in prison for insurrection and murder. But he handed Jesus over to their will.


As they led him away, they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country. They placed the cross on his back and made him carry it behind Jesus.


A great number of the people followed him, among them women who were mourning and wailing for him.


But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.


For this is certain: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore children, and the breasts that never nursed!’


Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’


For if such things are done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”


Two other criminals were also led away to be executed with him.


So when they came to the place that is called “The Skull,” they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.


[But Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”] Then they threw dice to divide his clothes.


The people also stood there watching, but the rulers ridiculed him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”


The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine,


and saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”


There was also an inscription over him, “This is the king of the Jews.”


One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”


But the other rebuked him, saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?


And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.”


Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”


And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”


It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,


because the sun’s light failed. The temple curtain was torn in two.


Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last.


Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent!”


And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.


And all those who knew Jesus stood at a distance, and the women who had followed him from Galilee saw these things.


Now there was a man named Joseph who was a member of the council, a good and righteous man.


(He had not consented to their plan and action.) He was from the Judean town of Arimathea, and was looking forward to the kingdom of God.


He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.


Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and placed it in a tomb cut out of the rock, where no one had yet been buried.


It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning.


The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.


Then they returned and prepared aromatic spices and perfumes. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.


Now on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women went to the tomb, taking the aromatic spices they had prepared.


They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb,


but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.


While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood beside them in dazzling attire.


The women were terribly frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?


He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,


that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”


Then the women remembered his words,


and when they returned from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.


Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.


But these words seemed like pure nonsense to them, and they did not believe them.


But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He bent down and saw only the strips of linen cloth; then he went home, wondering what had happened.


Now that very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.


They were talking to each other about all the things that had happened.


While they were talking and debating these things, Jesus himself approached and began to accompany them


(but their eyes were kept from recognizing him).


Then he said to them, “What are these matters you are discussing so intently as you walk along?” And they stood still, looking sad.


Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened there in these days?”


He said to them, “What things?” “The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene,” they replied, “a man who, with his powerful deeds and words, proved to be a prophet before God and all the people;


and how our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and crucified him.


But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. Not only this, but it is now the third day since these things happened.


Furthermore, some women of our group amazed us. They were at the tomb early this morning,


and when they did not find his body, they came back and said they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.


Then some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”


So he said to them, “You foolish people – how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!


Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?”


Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things written about himself in all the scriptures.


So they approached the village where they were going. He acted as though he wanted to go farther,


but they urged him, “Stay with us, because it is getting toward evening and the day is almost done.” So he went in to stay with them.


When he had taken his place at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.


At this point their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Then he vanished out of their sight.


They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us while he was speaking with us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us?”


So they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the eleven and those with them gathered together


and saying, “The Lord has really risen, and has appeared to Simon!”


Then they told what had happened on the road, and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.


While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”


But they were startled and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost.


Then he said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?


Look at my hands and my feet; it’s me! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have.”


When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.


And while they still could not believe it (because of their joy) and were amazed, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”


So they gave him a piece of broiled fish,


and he took it and ate it in front of them.


Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”


Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures,


and said to them, “Thus it stands written that the Christ would suffer and would rise from the dead on the third day,


and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.


You are witnesses of these things.


And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”


Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.


Now during the blessing he departed and was taken up into heaven.


So they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,


and were continually in the temple courts blessing God.


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God.


The Word was with God in the beginning.


All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.


In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.


And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.


A man came, sent from God, whose name was John.


He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that everyone might believe through him.


He himself was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.


The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.


He was in the world, and the world was created by him, but the world did not recognize him.


He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him.


But to all who have received him – those who believe in his name – he has given the right to become God’s children


– children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God.


Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.


John testified about him and shouted out, “This one was the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’”


For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another.


For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ.


No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.


Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”


He confessed – he did not deny but confessed – “I am not the Christ!”


So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No!”


Then they said to him, “Who are you? Tell us so that we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”


John said, “I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”


(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. )


So they asked John, “Why then are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”


John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not recognize,


who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal!”


These things happened in Bethany across the Jordan River where John was baptizing.


On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!


This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’


I did not recognize him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.”


Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.


And I did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining – this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’


I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.”


Again the next day John was standing there with two of his disciples.


Gazing at Jesus as he walked by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”


When John’s two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.


Jesus turned around and saw them following and said to them, “What do you want?” So they said to him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?”


Jesus answered, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. Now it was about four o’clock in the afternoon.


Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two disciples who heard what John said and followed Jesus.


He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is translated Christ).


Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).


On the next day Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”


(Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.)


Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”


Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip replied, “Come and see.”


Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”


Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”


Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!”


Jesus said to him, “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”


He continued, “I tell all of you the solemn truth – you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”


Now on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there,


and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.


When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine left.”


Jesus replied, “Woman, why are you saying this to me? My time has not yet come.”


His mother told the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”


Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.


Jesus told the servants, “Fill the water jars with water.” So they filled them up to the very top.


Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the head steward,” and they did.


When the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom


and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper wine when the guests are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!”


Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee. In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.


After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days.


Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.


He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables.


So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.


To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”


His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will devour me.”


So then the Jewish leaders responded, “What sign can you show us, since you are doing these things?”


Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.”


Then the Jewish leaders said to him, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?”


But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.


So after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the saying that Jesus had spoken.


Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs he was doing.


But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people.


He did not need anyone to testify about man, for he knew what was in man.


Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council,


came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”


Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”


Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”


Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.


What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.


Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’


The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”


Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?”


Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?


I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.


If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?


No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven – the Son of Man.


Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,


so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”


For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.


For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.


The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.


Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.


For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed.


But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.


After this, Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing.


John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming to him and being baptized.


(For John had not yet been thrown into prison.)


Now a dispute came about between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew concerning ceremonial washing.


So they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan River, about whom you testified – see, he is baptizing, and everyone is flocking to him!”


John replied, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven.


You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but rather, ‘I have been sent before him.’


The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my joy, and it is complete.


He must become more important while I become less important.”


The one who comes from above is superior to all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is superior to all.


He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.


The one who has accepted his testimony has confirmed clearly that God is truthful.


For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit sparingly.


The Father loves the Son and has placed all things under his authority.


The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him.


Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John


(although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were),


he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee.


But he had to pass through Samaria.


Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.


Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.


A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.”


(For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies. )


So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew – ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)


Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”


“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water?


Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”


Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.


But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”


The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”


He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.”


The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’


for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”


The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.


Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”


Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.


You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews.


But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.


God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”


The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.”


Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”


Now at that very moment his disciples came back. They were shocked because he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”


Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people,


“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can’t be the Messiah, can he?”


So they left the town and began coming to him.


Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”


But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”


So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did they?”


Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.


Don’t you say, ‘There are four more months and then comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest!


The one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together.


For in this instance the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’


I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”


Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”


So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days,


and because of his word many more believed.


They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world.”


After the two days he departed from there to Galilee.


(For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)


So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast (for they themselves had gone to the feast).


Now he came again to Cana there was a certain royal official whose son was sick.


When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.


So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will never believe!”


“Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my child dies.”


Jesus told him, “Go home; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and set off for home.


While he was on his way down, his slaves met him and told him that his son was going to live.


So he asked them the time when his condition began to improve, and they told him, “Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon the fever left him.”


Then the father realized that it was the very time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed along with his entire household.


Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.


After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.


Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways.


A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways.


Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.


When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?”


The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.”


Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.”


Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.)


So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to carry your mat.”


But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”


They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?”


But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped out, since there was a crowd in that place.


After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.”


The man went away and informed the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had made him well.


Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him.


So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.”


For this reason the Jewish leaders were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.


So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.


For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed.


For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.


Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son,


so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.


“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life.


I tell you the solemn truth, a time is coming – and is now here – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.


For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself,


and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.


“Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice


and will come out – the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.


I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.


“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.


There is another who testifies about me, and I know the testimony he testifies about me is true.


You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.


(I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.)


He was a lamp that was burning and shining, and you wanted to rejoice greatly for a short time in his light.


“But I have a testimony greater than that from John. For the deeds that the Father has assigned me to complete – the deeds I am now doing – testify about me that the Father has sent me.


And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You people have never heard his voice nor seen his form at any time,


nor do you have his word residing in you, because you do not believe the one whom he sent.


You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me,


but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.


“I do not accept praise from people,


but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you.


I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.


How can you believe, if you accept praise from one another and don’t seek the praise that comes from the only God?


“Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.


If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.


But if you do not believe what Moses wrote, how will you believe my words?”


After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias).


A large crowd was following him because they were observing the miraculous signs he was performing on the sick.


So Jesus went on up the mountainside and sat down there with his disciples.


(Now the Jewish feast of the Passover was near.)


Then Jesus, when he looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread so that these people may eat?”


(Now Jesus said this to test him, for he knew what he was going to do.)


Philip replied, “Two hundred silver coins worth of bread would not be enough for them, for each one to get a little.”


One of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,


“Here is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are these for so many people?”


Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” (Now there was a lot of grass in that place.) So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.


Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed the bread to those who were seated. He then did the same with the fish, as much as they wanted.


When they were all satisfied, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces that are left over, so that nothing is wasted.”


So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves left over by the people who had eaten.


Now when the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, they began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”


Then Jesus, because he knew they were going to come and seize him by force to make him king, withdrew again up the mountainside alone.


Now when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake,


got into a boat, and started to cross the lake to Capernaum. (It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.)


By now a strong wind was blowing and the sea was getting rough.


Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they caught sight of Jesus walking on the lake, approaching the boat, and they were frightened.


But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”


Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat came to the land where they had been heading.


The next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the lake realized that only one small boat had been there, and that Jesus had not boarded it with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.


But some boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.


So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.


When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”


Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves of bread you wanted.


Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life – the food which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.”


So then they said to him, “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires?”


Jesus replied, “This is the deed God requires – to believe in the one whom he sent.”


So they said to him, “Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?


Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”


Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven.


For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”


So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”


Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.


But I told you that you have seen me and still do not believe.


Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.


For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.


Now this is the will of the one who sent me – that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day.


For this is the will of my Father – for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”


Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,”


and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”


Jesus replied, “Do not complain about me to one another.


No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.


It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me.


(Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God – he has seen the Father.)


I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life.


I am the bread of life.


Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.


This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die.


I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”


Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”


Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.


The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.


For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.


The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him.


Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me.


This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”


Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.


Then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, “This is a difficult saying! Who can understand it?”


When Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended?


Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?


The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.


But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus had already known from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)


So Jesus added, “Because of this I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has allowed him to come.”


After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer.


So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”


Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.


We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”


Jesus replied, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is the devil?”


(Now he said this about Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for Judas, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.)


After this Jesus traveled throughout Galilee. He stayed out of Judea because the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him.


Now the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near.


So Jesus’ brothers advised him, “Leave here and go to Judea so your disciples may see your miracles that you are performing.


For no one who seeks to make a reputation for himself does anything in secret. If you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”


(For not even his own brothers believed in him.)


So Jesus replied, “My time has not yet arrived, but you are ready at any opportunity!


The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I am testifying about it that its deeds are evil.


You go up to the feast yourselves. I am not going up to this feast because my time has not yet fully arrived.”


When he had said this, he remained in Galilee.


But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then Jesus himself also went up, not openly but in secret.


So the Jewish leaders were looking for him at the feast, asking, “Where is he?”


There was a lot of grumbling about him among the crowds. Some were saying, “He is a good man,” but others, “He deceives the common people.”


However, no one spoke openly about him for fear of the Jewish leaders.


When the feast was half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach.


Then the Jewish leaders were astonished and said, “How does this man know so much when he has never had formal instruction?”


So Jesus replied, “My teaching is not from me, but from the one who sent me.


If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority.


The person who speaks on his own authority desires to receive honor for himself; the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness in him.


Hasn’t Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law! Why do you want to kill me?”


The crowd answered, “You’re possessed by a demon! Who is trying to kill you?”


Jesus replied, “I performed one miracle and you are all amazed.


However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath.


But if a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?


Do not judge according to external appearance, but judge with proper judgment.”


Then some of the residents of Jerusalem began to say, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?


Yet here he is, speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to him. Do the rulers really know that this man is the Christ?


But we know where this man comes from. Whenever the Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”


Then Jesus, while teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “You both know me and know where I come from! And I have not come on my own initiative, but the one who sent me is true. You do not know him,


but I know him, because I have come from him and he sent me.”


So then they tried to seize Jesus, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.


Yet many of the crowd believed in him and said, “Whenever the Christ comes, he won’t perform more miraculous signs than this man did, will he?”


The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about Jesus, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.


Then Jesus said, “I will be with you for only a little while longer, and then I am going to the one who sent me.


You will look for me but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.”


Then the Jewish leaders said to one another, “Where is he going to go that we cannot find him? He is not going to go to the Jewish people dispersed among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he?


What did he mean by saying, ‘You will look for me but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come’?”


On the last day of the feast, the greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and


let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’”


(Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive, for the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.)


When they heard these words, some of the crowd began to say, “This really is the Prophet!”


Others said, “This is the Christ!” But still others said, “No, for the Christ doesn’t come from Galilee, does he?


Don’t the scriptures say that the Christ is a descendant of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”


So there was a division in the crowd because of Jesus.


Some of them were wanting to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.


Then the officers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why didn’t you bring him back with you?”


The officers replied, “No one ever spoke like this man!”


Then the Pharisees answered, “You haven’t been deceived too, have you?


None of the rulers or the Pharisees have believed in him, have they?


But this rabble who do not know the law are accursed!”


Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and who was one of the rulers, said,


“Our law doesn’t condemn a man unless it first hears from him and learns what he is doing, does it?”


They replied, “You aren’t from Galilee too, are you? Investigate carefully and you will see that no prophet comes from Galilee!”


[[And each one departed to his own house.


But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.


Early in the morning he came to the temple courts again. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them.


The experts in the law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught committing adultery. They made her stand in front of them


and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.


In the law Moses commanded us to stone to death such women. What then do you say?”


(Now they were asking this in an attempt to trap him, so that they could bring charges against him.) Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger.


When they persisted in asking him, he stood up straight and replied, “Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her.”


Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground.


Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones, until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.


Jesus stood up straight and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”


She replied, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”]]


Then Jesus spoke out again, “I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”


So the Pharisees objected, “You testify about yourself; your testimony is not true!”


Jesus answered, “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. But you people do not know where I came from or where I am going.


You people judge by outward appearances; I do not judge anyone.


But if I judge, my evaluation is accurate, because I am not alone when I judge, but I and the Father who sent me do so together.


It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.


I testify about myself and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”


Then they began asking him, “Who is your father?” Jesus answered, “You do not know either me or my Father. If you knew me you would know my Father too.”


(Jesus spoke these words near the offering box while he was teaching in the temple courts. No one seized him because his time had not yet come.)


Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will look for me but will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.”


So the Jewish leaders began to say, “Perhaps he is going to kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’”


Jesus replied, “You people are from below; I am from above. You people are from this world; I am not from this world.


Thus I told you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”


So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus replied, “What I have told you from the beginning.


I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the Father who sent me is truthful, and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.”


(They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.)


Then Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak just what the Father taught me.


And the one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do those things that please him.”


While he was saying these things, many people believed in him.


Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples


and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”


“We are descendants of Abraham,” they replied, “and have never been anyone’s slaves! How can you say, ‘You will become free’?”


Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin.


The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains forever.


So if the son sets you free, you will be really free.


I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. But you want to kill me, because my teaching makes no progress among you.


I am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father; as for you, practice the things you have heard from the Father!”


They answered him, “Abraham is our father!” Jesus replied, “If you are Abraham’s children, you would be doing the deeds of Abraham.


But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth I heard from God. Abraham did not do this!


You people are doing the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Jesus, “We were not born as a result of immorality! We have only one Father, God himself.”


Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come from God and am now here. I have not come on my own initiative, but he sent me.


Why don’t you understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot accept my teaching.


You people are from your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.


But because I am telling you the truth, you do not believe me.


Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? If I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me?


The one who belongs to God listens and responds to God’s words. You don’t listen and respond, because you don’t belong to God.”


The Judeans replied, “Aren’t we correct in saying that you are a Samaritan and are possessed by a demon?”


Jesus answered, “I am not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father – and yet you dishonor me.


I am not trying to get praise for myself. There is one who demands it, and he also judges.


I tell you the solemn truth, if anyone obeys my teaching, he will never see death.”


Then the Judeans responded, “Now we know you’re possessed by a demon! Both Abraham and the prophets died, and yet you say, ‘If anyone obeys my teaching, he will never experience death.’


You aren’t greater than our father Abraham who died, are you? And the prophets died too! Who do you claim to be?”


Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless. The one who glorifies me is my Father, about whom you people say, ‘He is our God.’


Yet you do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I obey his teaching.


Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.”


Then the Judeans replied, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?”


Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!”


Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple area.


Now as Jesus was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.


His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man or his parents?”


Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that the acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him.


We must perform the deeds of the one who sent me as long as it is daytime. Night is coming when no one can work.


As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”


Having said this, he spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva. He smeared the mud on the blind man’s eyes


and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated “sent”). So the blind man went away and washed, and came back seeing.


Then the neighbors and the people who had seen him previously as a beggar began saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”


Some people said, “This is the man!” while others said, “No, but he looks like him.” The man himself kept insisting, “I am the one!”


So they asked him, “How then were you made to see?”


He replied, “The man called Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and was able to see.”


They said to him, “Where is that man?” He replied, “I don’t know.”


They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees.


(Now the day on which Jesus made the mud and caused him to see was a Sabbath.)


So the Pharisees asked him again how he had gained his sight. He replied, “He put mud on my eyes and I washed, and now I am able to see.”


Then some of the Pharisees began to say, “This man is not from God, because he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division among them.


So again they asked the man who used to be blind, “What do you say about him, since he caused you to see?” “He is a prophet,” the man replied.


Now the Jewish religious leaders refused to believe that he had really been blind and had gained his sight until at last they summoned the parents of the man who had become able to see.


They asked the parents, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”


So his parents replied, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.


But we do not know how he is now able to see, nor do we know who caused him to see. Ask him, he is a mature adult. He will speak for himself.”


(His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jewish religious leaders. For the Jewish leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.


For this reason his parents said, “He is a mature adult, ask him.”)


Then they summoned the man who used to be blind a second time and said to him, “Promise before God to tell the truth. We know that this man is a sinner.”


He replied, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. I do know one thing – that although I was blind, now I can see.”


Then they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he cause you to see?”


He answered, “I told you already and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You people don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?”


They heaped insults on him, saying, “You are his disciple! We are disciples of Moses!


We know that God has spoken to Moses! We do not know where this man comes from!”


The man replied, “This is a remarkable thing, that you don’t know where he comes from, and yet he caused me to see!


We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is devout and does his will, God listens to him.


Never before has anyone heard of someone causing a man born blind to see.


If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”


They replied, “You were born completely in sinfulness, and yet you presume to teach us?” So they threw him out.


Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, so he found the man and said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”


The man replied, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”


Jesus told him, “You have seen him; he is the one speaking with you.”


[He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.


Jesus said,] “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, and the ones who see may become blind.”


Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and asked him, “We are not blind too, are we?”


Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains.”


“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber.


The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.


The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.


When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.


They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice.”


Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.


So Jesus said to them again, “I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep.


All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.


I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture.


The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.


“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.


The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them.


Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.


“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me –


just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.


I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd.


This is why the Father loves me – because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again.


No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father.”


Another sharp division took place among the Jewish people because of these words.


Many of them were saying, “He is possessed by a demon and has lost his mind! Why do you listen to him?”


Others said, “These are not the words of someone possessed by a demon. A demon cannot cause the blind to see, can it?”


Then came the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem.


It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple area in Solomon’s Portico.


The Jewish leaders surrounded him and asked, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”


Jesus replied, “I told you and you do not believe. The deeds I do in my Father’s name testify about me.


But you refuse to believe because you are not my sheep.


My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.


I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand.


My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand.


The Father and I are one.”


The Jewish leaders picked up rocks again to stone him to death.


Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?”


The Jewish leaders replied, “We are not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God.”


Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?


If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken),


do you say about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?


If I do not perform the deeds of my Father, do not believe me.


But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”


Then they attempted again to seize him, but he escaped their clutches.


Jesus went back across the Jordan River again to the place where John had been baptizing at an earlier time, and he stayed there.


Many came to him and began to say, “John performed no miraculous sign, but everything John said about this man was true!”


And many believed in Jesus there.


Now a certain man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.


(Now it was Mary who anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and wiped his feet dry with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)


So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.”


When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not lead to death, but to God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”


(Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.)


So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he remained in the place where he was for two more days.


Then after this, he said to his disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”


The disciples replied, “Rabbi, the Jewish leaders were just now trying to stone you to death! Are you going there again?”


Jesus replied, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If anyone walks around in the daytime, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.


But if anyone walks around at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”


After he said this, he added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going there to awaken him.”


Then the disciples replied, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”


(Now Jesus had been talking about his death, but they thought he had been talking about real sleep.)


Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died,


and I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”


So Thomas (called Didymus ) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go too, so that we may die with him.”


When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days already.


(Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,


so many of the Jewish people of the region had come to Martha and Mary to console them over the loss of their brother.)


So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary was sitting in the house.


Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.


But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will grant you.”


Jesus replied, “Your brother will come back to life again.”


Martha said, “I know that he will come back to life again in the resurrection at the last day.”


Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies,


and the one who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”


She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who comes into the world.”


And when she had said this, Martha went and called her sister Mary, saying privately, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”


So when Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.


(Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha had come out to meet him.)


Then the people who were with Mary in the house consoling her saw her get up quickly and go out. They followed her, because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there.


Now when Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”


When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved in spirit and greatly distressed.


He asked, “Where have you laid him?” They replied, “Lord, come and see.”


Jesus wept.


Thus the people who had come to mourn said, “Look how much he loved him!”


But some of them said, “This is the man who caused the blind man to see! Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus from dying?”


Jesus, intensely moved again, came to the tomb. (Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed across it.)


Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell, because he has been buried four days.”


Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?”


So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me.


I knew that you always listen to me, but I said this for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.”


When he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”


The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped around his face. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”


Then many of the people, who had come with Mary and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in him.


But some of them went to the Pharisees and reported to them what Jesus had done.


So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the council together and said, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many miraculous signs.


If we allow him to go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our sanctuary and our nation.”


Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all!


You do not realize that it is more to your advantage to have one man die for the people than for the whole nation to perish.”


(Now he did not say this on his own, but because he was high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish nation,


and not for the Jewish nation only, but to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered.)


So from that day they planned together to kill him.


Thus Jesus no longer went around publicly among the Judeans, but went away from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.


Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, and many people went up to Jerusalem from the rural areas before the Passover to cleanse themselves ritually.


Thus they were looking for Jesus, and saying to one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think? That he won’t come to the feast?”


(Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it, so that they could arrest him.)


Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead.


So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there. Martha was serving, and Lazarus was among those present at the table with him.


Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.)


But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said,


“Why wasn’t this oil sold for three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor?”


(Now Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, he used to steal what was put into it.)


So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has kept it for the day of my burial.


For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me!”


Now a large crowd of Judeans learned that Jesus was there, and so they came not only because of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead.


So the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too,


for on account of him many of the Jewish people from Jerusalem were going away and believing in Jesus.


The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.


So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. They began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord*! Blessed is the king of Israel!”


Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,


“Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt!”


(His disciples did not understand these things when they first happened, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that these things had happened to him.)


So the crowd who had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead were continuing to testify about it.


Because they had heard that Jesus had performed this miraculous sign, the crowd went out to meet him.


Thus the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing. Look, the world has run off after him!”


Now some Greeks were among those who had gone up to worship at the feast.


So these approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”


Philip went and told Andrew, and they both went and told Jesus.


Jesus replied, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.


I tell you the solemn truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.


The one who loves his life destroys it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards it for eternal life.


If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am, my servant will be too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.


“Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? ‘Father, deliver me from this hour’? No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour.


Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”


The crowd that stood there and heard the voice said that it had thundered. Others said that an angel had spoken to him.


Jesus said, “This voice has not come for my benefit but for yours.


Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.


And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”


(Now he said this to indicate clearly what kind of death he was going to die.)


Then the crowd responded, “We have heard from the law that the Christ will remain forever. How can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”


Jesus replied, “The light is with you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.


While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light.” When Jesus had said these things, he went away and hid himself from them.


Although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in him,


so that the word of Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled. He said, “Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”


For this reason they could not believe, because again Isaiah said,


“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn to me, and I would heal them*.”


Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ’s glory, and spoke about him.


Nevertheless, even among the rulers many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they would not confess Jesus to be the Christ, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.


For they loved praise from men more than praise from God.


But Jesus shouted out, “The one who believes in me does not believe in me, but in the one who sent me,


and the one who sees me sees the one who sent me.


I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness.


If anyone hears my words and does not obey them, I do not judge him. For I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world.


The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has a judge; the word I have spoken will judge him at the last day.


For I have not spoken from my own authority, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak.


And I know that his commandment is eternal life. Thus the things I say, I say just as the Father has told me.”


Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that his time had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end.


The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, that he should betray Jesus.


Because Jesus knew that the Father had handed all things over to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,


he got up from the meal, removed his outer clothes, took a towel and tied it around himself.


He poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel he had wrapped around himself.


Then he came to Simon Peter. Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”


Jesus replied, “You do not understand what I am doing now, but you will understand after these things.”


Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”


Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!”


Jesus replied, “The one who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not every one of you.”


(For Jesus knew the one who was going to betray him. For this reason he said, “Not every one of you is clean.”)


So when Jesus had washed their feet and put his outer clothing back on, he took his place at the table again and said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you?


You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and do so correctly, for that is what I am.


If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet.


For I have given you an example – you should do just as I have done for you.


I tell you the solemn truth, the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him.


If you understand these things, you will be blessed if you do them.


“What I am saying does not refer to all of you. I know the ones I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the scripture, ‘The one who eats my bread my bread has turned against me.’


I am telling you this now, before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I am he.


I tell you the solemn truth, whoever accepts the one I send accepts me, and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”


When he had said these things, Jesus was greatly distressed in spirit, and testified, “I tell you the solemn truth, one of you will betray me.”


The disciples began to look at one another, worried and perplexed to know which of them he was talking about.


One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was at the table to the right of Jesus in a place of honor.


So Simon Peter gestured to this disciple to ask Jesus who it was he was referring to.


Then the disciple whom Jesus loved leaned back against Jesus’ chest and asked him, “Lord, who is it?”


Jesus replied, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread after I have dipped it in the dish.” Then he dipped the piece of bread in the dish and gave it to Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son.


And after Judas took the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”


(Now none of those present at the table understood why Jesus said this to Judas.


Some thought that, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him to buy whatever they needed for the feast, or to give something to the poor.)


Judas took the piece of bread and went out immediately. (Now it was night.)


When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.


If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him right away.


Children, I am still with you for a little while. You will look for me, and just as I said to the Jewish religious leaders, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ now I tell you the same.


“I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.


Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another.”


Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.”


Peter said to him, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!”


Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? I tell you the solemn truth, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times!


“Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me.


There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you.


And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too.


And you know the way where I am going.”


Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”


Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.


If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.”


Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.”


Jesus replied, “Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?


Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds.


Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves.