John 5
The full text of John 5 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethzatha, having five porticoes.
3 In these lay a multitude of the sick — blind, lame, paralyzed.
5 And one man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to become well?"
7 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 coming, another steps down before me."
8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your mat, and walk."
9 And at once the man was made well; he took up his mat and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.
10 So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to take up your mat."
11 But he answered them, "The one who made me well, that man said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'"
12 They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
13 But the one who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you."
15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 And this is why the Jewish leaders persecuted Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But he answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I myself am working."
18 For this reason therefore the Jewish leaders were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only did he break the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus therefore answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you: the Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, the Son also does likewise.
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself is doing; and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills.
22 For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son,
23 so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
24 Truly, truly, I say to you: whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
25 Truly, truly, I say to you: an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself,
27 and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
29 and will come out — those who have done good to a resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to a resurrection of judgment.
30 I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me.
31 If I bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.
32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony he bears about me is true.
33 You yourselves have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
34 But I do not receive testimony from man; I say these things so that you may be saved.
35 He was the lamp that was burning and shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a time in his light.
36 But the testimony I have is greater than that of John, for the works the Father has given me to complete — these very works that I am doing — bear witness about me, that the Father has sent me.
37 And the Father who sent me — he himself has borne witness about me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form,
38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he sent.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they that bear witness about me,
40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
41 I do not receive glory from man,
42 but I know that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.
43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you — Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.
47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"
Translation notes (19)
- John 5:1a Some manuscripts read 'the feast' (with article), suggesting Passover; most read anarthrous 'a feast,' leaving the festival unspecified. NA28 prefers anarthrous. Identification of the feast affects the chronology of Jesus' Jerusalem visits but not the narrative sense.
- John 5:2a Greek manuscripts give four readings for the pool's name: Βηθζαθά ('Bethzatha,' NA28 preferred — ℵ, L, 33; 'house of olives' / 'house of the new'); Βηθεσδά ('Bethesda,' A, C, Byzantine + KJV; 'house of mercy/grace'); Βηθσαϊδά ('Bethsaida,' P75, B); Βηλζεθά (D).
- John 5:2b John's 'Hebrew' (Ἑβραϊστί) here probably = Aramaic (the spoken language of first-century Palestine); biblical Hebrew was largely liturgical by then. Same usage at 19:13, 19:17, 19:20.
- John 5:3a Verse 3b ('waiting for the moving of the water') and the whole of verse 4 ('For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water; whoever then first stepped in after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had') are absent from the earliest manuscripts — P66, P75, ℵ, B, C*, D, and many others — and added in A, C³, K, and the Byzantine majority + KJV. NA28/UBS5 omit.
- John 5:7a 'When the water is stirred up' references the popular Bethesda legend (the angel-stirring tradition rejected from the body in v.3-4 per the apparatus footnote there). The sick man is voicing local belief. Jesus does not validate the legend — he heals directly by his word in v.8.
- John 5:8a Greek κράββατος ('mat / pallet') — a poor person's bedroll, easy to carry. NIV: 'mat'; KJV: 'bed' (modern English 'bed' implies a frame, which is wrong for the social context). The portable bedroll matters narratively: the man can carry it (which sets up the Sabbath dispute in v.10).
- John 5:14a 'Sin no more so that nothing worse may happen' — the connection between this man's prior illness and sin is contested. In John 9:3 Jesus rejects the simplistic sin-causes-illness reading ('neither this man nor his parents sinned, but...'). The 'something worse' here is probably divine judgment in general (eschatological), not renewed paralysis specifically. Reading the two passages together: Jesus does not hold that all illness is punishment for personal sin (9:3), but he does warn that ongoing rebellion has eschatological consequences (here).
- John 5:17a 'My Father is working until now' challenges the Sabbath-rest doctrine at its root. Jewish theology held that God 'rested' on the seventh day only in the sense of completing creation, not that he stopped all activity (he upholds the universe, gives life and breath, judges, redeems — all continuous). Jesus invokes this continuous divine work and parallels his own activity to it. The crasis κἀγώ ('I myself / and I') emphatic personal identification with the Father's prerogative — which is exactly what the Jewish leaders read in v.18 as 'making himself equal with God.'
- John 5:18a 'Calling God his own Father' (πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγεν τὸν θεόν): the key adjective is ἴδιον ('his own') — Jesus claims a unique, personal-filial relation to God, not the general 'our Father' of Jewish prayer. The opponents read this as a claim to deity. The phrase ἴσον τῷ θεῷ ('equal with God') is the narrator's summary of THE OPPONENTS' interpretation, not Jesus's verbatim self-claim. Jesus's response in vv.19-30 will both affirm his unique sonship and clarify the nature of the equality — functional unity in will and work, with the Son doing only what he sees the Father doing (v.19), not contestation of monotheism.
- John 5:23a 'Honor the Son just as they honor the Father' — the equality of honor (καθὼς, 'in the same way as') is total. Against the Jewish Shema (Deut 6:4: 'The LORD our God, the LORD is one') any claim of equal honor between God and another being is a deity-claim; v.23 confirms what the opponents accused in v.18 ('making himself equal with God'). But Jesus's framing in vv.19-30 sharpens it: not competition with the Father, but functional unity in will, work, and honor — the Son does only what he sees the Father doing, the Son's authority is given by the Father, the Son's honor reflects the Father's.
- John 5:25a 'Hour is coming AND now is' — Johannine already-not-yet eschatology. The future resurrection (vv.28-29) is anticipated in present spiritual quickening: those who hear Jesus's word (v.24) experience now what the dead will experience at the end. Same pattern at 4:23 ('hour is coming and now is, when true worshipers...'). The 'now is' element distinguishes Johannine eschatology from purely-future Synoptic patterns.
- John 5:27a Greek ὅτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν — both nouns are anarthrous: 'because he is son of man' / 'because he is a son of man.' The phrase echoes Daniel 7:13 LXX (ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου, 'like a son of man') — also anarthrous — where the figure receives universal authority and judgment from the Ancient of Days. The role given to Jesus here matches Daniel 7:13's exactly.
- John 5:31a Greek ἀληθής covers both 'factually true' and 'legally valid.' Context is legal: Jewish law (Deut 19:15) required two or three witnesses for a charge to stand. Jesus is acknowledging this rule — his self-witness alone wouldn't suffice — and then providing the witnesses (vv.32-47): the Father, John the Baptist, his works, the Scriptures.
- John 5:35a 'The lamp' (ὁ λύχνος, with article) — JBap is THE burning lamp, distinct from THE light (τὸ φῶς) of 1:8-9 ('he was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light'). The lamp/light distinction preserves JBap's subordinate role: he illuminates by reflection, not by source.
- John 5:38a 'Abiding' (μένοντα) is Johannine signature: 1:38-39 ('where are you staying?'), 4:40 (Jesus 'stays' two days with Samaritans), 6:56, 14:10, 15:1-10 (the abiding-in-the-vine discourse). The word is more than spatial — it names mutual indwelling, theological presence.
- John 5:39a Greek ἐραυνᾶτε (2pl present active) is morphologically ambiguous: imperative ('Search the Scriptures!') or indicative ('You search the Scriptures'). KJV reads imperative; most modern translations (NIV, ESV, NRSV, NASB) read indicative. Indicative fits the context: Jesus observes what his opponents ALREADY DO — search the Scriptures expecting eternal life — and points out that those very Scriptures testify to him, the source they fail to recognize. The imperative reading would have Jesus commanding study, which doesn't fit.
- John 5:42a Greek τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ ('the love of God') is grammatically ambiguous: (1) objective genitive ('love directed at God' — they fail to love God); (2) subjective genitive ('love coming from God' — they lack God's love for them); (3) qualitative ('the love-of-God-kind of love'). Reading (1) is most common in this context (parallel to v.43's 'you do not receive me') — Jesus indicts them for failing to love the God they claim to serve.
- John 5:44a Manuscripts split: P66, P75, B, W read τοῦ μόνου θεοῦ ('the only God'); ℵ, A, K, Byzantine omit θεοῦ ('the only One'). NA28 brackets [θεοῦ] — apparently in or near the original. Either way, the contrast is human-glory vs God-given glory.
- John 5:47a Greek contrast preserved: γράμμασιν ('writings / letters' — the written corpus of Moses, i.e., the Pentateuch) vs ῥήμασιν ('utterances / sayings' — Jesus's spoken word). The contrast underlines the indictment: they hold the written Word in trust but reject the living Word.
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