5:1 After that there was a festival of the Judeans, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

5:2 Now there is a pool with five porticoes in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, which in Hebrew is called Bethzatha.

5:3 A large number of the disabled— blind, lame, sick— were set down in the porticoes

5:4 to wait for the stirring of the water. For a Messenger of the Master would come from time to time to stir up the water, and the first person to get into the water would be healed of whatever ailment they had.

5:5 Now a certain person was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.

5:6 Jesus, seeing this one lying down and knowing he had been there a long time, says to him, “I assume you want to be healed.”

5:7 The disabled one replied, “Sir, I have no one to help me into the water whenever it is disturbed. Before I can get in, someone else gets there first.”

5:8 Jesus says to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!”

5:9 Then immediately the person was healed, and he picked up his mat and walked around. This was on a Sabbath day.

5:10 Then the Judeans said to the one who was healed, “This is a Sabbath, and you are not permitted to pick up your mat!”

5:11 But he answered, “The one who healed me is the one who told me to pick up my mat and walk.”

5:12 Then they asked him, “Who told you this?”

5:13 But the one who was healed didn’t see who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.

5:14 After this, Jesus finds him in the temple compound and said to him, “Look at you— you have been healed. Be sure not to fail any more, or else something worse may happen to you.”

5:15 The person went away and informed the Judeans that Jesus is the one who healed him.

5:16 And for this reason the Judeans hounded Jesus, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

5:17 Yet Jesus answered them, “My Father is at work, and so am I.”

5:18 This made the Judeans all the more determined to kill him, since he not only violated the Sabbath but also called God his father, making himself the same as God.

5:19 Then Jesus responded to them, “Very truly I tell you all, that the Son can do nothing of his own accord but only that which he sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does is what the Son also does.

5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. And he will show him greater and more amazing things than these:

5:21 just as the Father raises the dead back to life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he chooses.

5:22 The Father is not judging anyone but has instead handed it all over to the Son,

5:23 so that all might honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Conversely, those who dishonor the Son dishonor the Father who sent him.

5:24 “Very truly I tell you all, that the one who hears what I say and puts trust in the one sending me has eternal life; they are not coming into judgment but have moved out of death and into life.

5:25 I tell you that an hour is coming— and in fact is upon us— when the dead will hear the voice of the God-Man and come to life.

5:26 For just as the Father owns life, so also the Son owns life.

5:27 The Father gives him authority to judge, seeing that he is a human being.

5:28 “Don’t be surprised at this, since the hour is coming when all those in their graves will hear his voice;

5:29 those who do good things will be raised into life, but those practicing foul things will be raised into judgment.

5:30 I can do nothing of my own accord; I only judge as I am told. My judgment is impartial due to the fact that I am not following my own agenda but that of the one who sent me.

5:31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.

5:32 But there is another who vouches for me, and I have perceived that his testimony is true.

5:33 You sent people to John and he served as a witness to the truth.

5:34 Yet I am not getting my testimony from people, but I tell you these things so you can be saved.

5:35 John was a little candle that burned and shined, and for a short time you basked in his light.

5:36 Yet my testimony is greater than his, because the tasks the Father has given me to complete— the very things I am doing— are evidence that the Father has commissioned me.

5:37 “And the one sending me— the Father— has testified about me, though you have neither heard his voice nor seen his appearance

5:38 and do not retain his Word, because you have not believed the one he commissioned.

5:39 You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, yet those very scriptures are a witness to me.

5:40 You refuse to come to me so you could have life.

5:41 “I don’t get my honor from people;

5:42 but I know you all, and the love of God is not in you.

5:43 I have come with the authority of my Father and you won’t accept me, but if someone comes by their own authority you’ll accept them.

5:44 How can you believe, when your honor comes from each other instead of reaching for the honor that only comes from God?

5:45 Do not suppose that I will be your accuser before the Father; your accuser will be none other than Moses, the one upon whom you’ve pinned all your hopes.

5:46 For if you had believed Moses you’d believe me, since I’m the one he wrote about.

5:47 So if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I declare?”