Study Desk

After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.^(a)

By the Sheep Gate^(b) in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda^[a] in Hebrew, which has five colonnades.^[b]

Within these lay a large number of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed [—waiting for the moving of the water,

because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had].^[c]

One man was there who had been sick for 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time,^(c) He said to him, "Do you want to get well?"

"Sir,"^(d) the sick man answered, "I don't have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me."

"Get up," Jesus told him, "pick up your mat and walk!"

Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,^(e)

so the Jews^(f) said to the man who had been healed, "This is the Sabbath!^(g) It's illegal for you to pick up your mat."

He replied, "The man who made me well^(h) told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.' "

"Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk' ?" they asked.

But the man who was cured did not know who it was,⁽ⁱ⁾ because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.^[d]

After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex^(j) and said to him, "See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn't happen to you."

The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.^(k)

Therefore, the Jews began persecuting^(l) Jesus^[e] because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.^(m)

But Jesus responded to them, "My Father⁽ⁿ⁾ is still working, and I am working also."

This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill Him:^(o) Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.