Cure on a Sabbath. 1After this, there was a feast^* of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.^a 2Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep [Gate]^* a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.^b 3In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.^* [ 4 ]^* 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” 7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”^c 9Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.^d

Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”^e 11He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.^f 14^* After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,^g “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. 16Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.^h 17^* But Jesus answered them,ⁱ “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” 18For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.^j