John 5 — FBV

5Verse 1After this there was a Jewish festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem.^{Verse 2}Now near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem is a pool called Bethzatha in Hebrew, with five porches beside it.^{Verse 3}Crowds of sick people were lying in these porches—those who were blind, lame, or paralyzed.^{Verse 4+Verse 5}One man who was there had been sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus looked at him, knowing he had been lying there for a long time, and asked him,^{Verse 6}“Do you want to be healed?”^{Verse 7}“Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don't have anyone to help me get into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get there, someone always gets in before me.”^{Verse 8}“Stand up, pick up your mat, and start walking!” Jesus told him.^{Verse 9}Immediately the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking. Now the day that this happened was the Sabbath.^{Verse 10}So the Jews said to the man who'd been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It's against the law to carry a mat!”^{Verse 11}“The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and start walking,” he replied.^{Verse 12}“Who's this person who told you to carry your mat and walk?” they asked.^{Verse 13}However, the man who'd been healed didn't know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the surrounding crowd.^{Verse 14}Later on Jesus found the man in the Temple, and told him, “Look, now you've been healed. So stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”^{Verse 15}The man went and told the Jews it was Jesus who had healed him.^{Verse 16}So the Jews started to harass Jesus because he was doing things on the Sabbath.^{Verse 17}But Jesus told them, “My Father is still working, and so am I.”^{+Verse 18}This was why the Jews tried even harder to kill him, for not only did he break the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.^{Verse 19}So Jesus explained to them, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does the Son does as well.^{Verse 20}For the Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything he does; and the Father will show to him even more incredible things that will completely amaze you.^{Verse 21}For just as the Father gives life to those he resurrects from the dead, in the same way the Son also gives life to those that he wants.^{Verse 22}The Father judges no one. He has given to the Son all the authority to judge,^{Verse 23}so that everyone may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who doesn't honor the Son doesn't honor the Father who sent him.^{Verse 24}I tell you the truth: those who follow⁺what I say and trust the one who sent me have eternal life. They won't be condemned, but have gone from death to life.^{Verse 25}I tell you the truth: The time is coming—in fact it's here already—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live!^{Verse 26}Just as the Father has life-giving power in himself, so has he given the Son the same life-giving power in himself.^{Verse 27}The Father also granted the authority for judgment to him, for he is the Son of man.^{Verse 28}Don't be surprised at this, for the time is coming when all those in the grave will hear his voice^{Verse 29}and will rise again: those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.^{+Verse 30}I can do nothing by myself. I judge based on what I'm told,⁺and my decision is right, for I'm not doing my own will but the will of the one who sent me.^{Verse 31}If I were to make claims about myself, such claims wouldn't be valid;^{Verse 32}but someone else gives evidence about me, and I know what he says about me is true.^{Verse 33}You asked John about me, and he told the truth,^{Verse 34}but I don't need any human endorsement. I'm explaining this to you so you can be saved.^{Verse 35}John was like a brightly-burning light, and you were willing to enjoy his light for a while.^{Verse 36}But the evidence I'm giving is greater than John's. For I am doing the work that the Father gave me to do,^{Verse 37}and this is the proof that the Father sent me. The Father who sent me, he himself speaks on my behalf. You've never heard his voice, and you've never seen what he looks like,^{Verse 38}and you don't accept what he says, because you don't trust in the one he sent.^{Verse 39}You search the Scriptures because you think that through them you'll gain eternal life. But the evidence they give is in support of me!^{Verse 40}And yet you don't want to come to me so that you might live.^{Verse 41}I'm not looking for human approval^{Verse 42}—I know you, and that you don't have God's love in you.^{Verse 43}For I've come to represent⁺my Father, and you won't accept me; but if someone comes representing themselves, then you accept them!^{Verse 44}How can you trust in me when you look for praise from one another and yet you don't look for praise from the one true God?^{Verse 45}But don't think I will be making accusations about you to the Father. It's Moses who is accusing you, the one in whom you place such confidence.^{Verse 46}For if you really trusted Moses you would trust in me, because he wrote about me.^{Verse 47}But since you don't trust what he said, why would you trust what I say?”