John 7-8

Complete Jewish Bible

7 After this, Yeshua traveled around in the Galil, intentionally avoiding Y’hudah because the Judeans were out to kill him. ² But the festival of Sukkot in Y’hudah was near; ³ so his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go into Y’hudah, so that your talmidim can see the miracles you do; ⁴ for no one who wants to become known acts in secret. If you’re doing these things, show yourself to the world!” ⁵ (His brothers spoke this way because they had not put their trust in him.) ⁶ Yeshua said to them, “My time has not yet come; but for you, any time is right. ⁷ The world can’t hate you, but it does hate me, because I keep telling it how wicked its ways are. ⁸ You, go on up to the festival; as for me, I am not going up to this festival now, because the right time for me has not yet come.” ⁹ Having said this, he stayed on in the Galil.

¹⁰ But after his brothers had gone up to the festival, he too went up, not publicly but in secret. ¹¹ At the festival, the Judeans were looking for him. “Where is he?” they asked. ¹² And among the crowds there was much whispering about him. Some said, “He’s a good man”; but others said, “No, he is deceiving the masses.” ¹³ However, no one spoke about him openly, for fear of the Judeans.

¹⁴ Not until the festival was half over did Yeshua go up to the Temple courts and begin to teach. ¹⁵ The Judeans were surprised: “How does this man know so much without having studied?” they asked. ¹⁶ So Yeshua gave them an answer: “My teaching is not my own, it comes from the One who sent me. ¹⁷ If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or I speak on my own. ¹⁸ A person who speaks on his own is trying to win praise for himself; but a person who tries to win praise for the one who sent him is honest, there is nothing false about him. ¹⁹ Didn’t Moshe give you the Torah? Yet not one of you obeys the Torah! Why are you out to kill me?” ²⁰ “You have a demon!” the crowd answered. “Who’s out to kill you?” ²¹ Yeshua answered them, “I did one thing; and because of this, all of you are amazed. ²² Moshe gave you b’rit-milah — not that it came from Moshe but from the Patriarchs — and you do a boy’s b’rit-milah on Shabbat. ²³ If a boy is circumcised on Shabbat so that the Torah of Moshe will not be broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man’s whole body well on Shabbat? ²⁴ Stop judging by surface appearances, and judge the right way!”

²⁵ Some of the Yerushalayim people said, “Isn’t this the man they’re out to kill? ²⁶ Yet here he is, speaking openly; and they don’t say anything to him. It couldn’t be, could it, that the authorities have actually concluded he’s the Messiah? ²⁷ Surely not — we know where this man comes from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he comes from.” ²⁸ Whereupon Yeshua, continuing to teach in the Temple courts, cried out, “Indeed you do know me! And you know where I’m from! And I have not come on my own! The One who sent me is real. But him you don’t know! ²⁹ I do know him, because I am with him, and he sent me!”

³⁰ At this, they tried to arrest him; but no one laid a hand on him; because his time had not yet come. ³¹ However, many in the crowd put their trust in him and said, “When the Messiah comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?”

³² The P’rushim heard the crowd whispering these things about Yeshua; so the head cohanim and the P’rushim sent some of the Temple guards to arrest him. ³³ Yeshua said, “I will be with you only a little while longer; then I will go away to the One who sent me. ³⁴ You will look for me and not find me; indeed, where I am, you cannot come.” ³⁵ The Judeans said to themselves, “Where is this man about to go, that we won’t find him? Does he intend to go to the Greek Diaspora and teach the Greek-speaking Jews? ³⁶ And when he says, ‘You will look for me and not find me; indeed, where I am, you cannot come’ — what does he mean?”

³⁷ Now on the last day of the festival, Hoshana Rabbah, Yeshua stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him keep coming to me and drinking! ³⁸ Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!” ³⁹ (Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were to receive later — the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet been glorified.)

⁴⁰ On hearing his words, some people in the crowd said, “Surely this man is ‘the prophet’”; ⁴¹ others said, “This is the Messiah.” But others said, “How can the Messiah come from the Galil? ⁴² Doesn’t the Tanakh say that the Messiah is from the seed of David^[a] and comes from Beit-Lechem,^[b] the village where David lived?” ⁴³ So the people were divided because of him. ⁴⁴ Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.

⁴⁵ The guards came back to the head cohanim and the P’rushim, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” ⁴⁶ The guards replied, “No one ever spoke the way this man speaks!” ⁴⁷ “You mean you’ve been taken in as well?” the P’rushim retorted. ⁴⁸ “Has any of the authorities trusted him? Or any of the P’rushim? No! ⁴⁹ True, these ‘am-ha’aretz do, but they know nothing about the Torah, they are under a curse!”

⁵⁰ Nakdimon, the man who had gone to Yeshua before and was one of them, said to them, ⁵¹ “Our Torah doesn’t condemn a man — does it? — until after hearing from him and finding out what he’s doing.” ⁵² They replied, “You aren’t from the Galil too, are you? Study the Tanakh, and see for yourself that no prophet comes from the Galil!” ^{[c] 53} Then they all left, each one to his own home.

8 But Yeshua went to the Mount of Olives. ² At daybreak, he appeared again in the Temple Court, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The Torah-teachers and the P’rushim brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery and made her stand in the center of the group. ⁴ Then they said to him, “Rabbi, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. ⁵ Now in our Torah, Moshe commanded that such a woman be stoned to death. What do you say about it?” ⁶ They said this to trap him, so that they might have ground for bringing charges against him; but Yeshua bent down and began writing in the dust with his finger. ⁷ When they kept questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “The one of you who is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Then he bent down and wrote in the dust again. ⁹ On hearing this, they began to leave, one by one, the older ones first, until he was left alone, with the woman still there. ¹⁰ Standing up, Yeshua said to her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, sir.” Yeshua said, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and don’t sin any more.”

¹² Yeshua spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light which gives life.” ¹³ So the P’rushim said to him, “Now you’re testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.” ¹⁴ Yeshua answered them, “Even if I do testify on my own behalf, my testimony is indeed valid; because I know where I came from and where I’m going; but you do not know where I came from or where I’m going. ¹⁵ You judge by merely human standards. As for me, I pass judgment on no one; ¹⁶ but if I were indeed to pass judgment, my judgment would be valid; because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the One who sent me. ¹⁷ And even in your Torah it is written that the testimony of two people is valid. ¹⁸ I myself testify on my own behalf, and so does the Father who sent me.”

¹⁹ They said to him, “Where is this ‘father’ of yours?” Yeshua answered, “You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father too.” ²⁰ He said these things when he was teaching in the Temple treasury room; yet no one arrested him, because his time had not yet come.

²¹ Again he told them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin — where I am going, you cannot come.” ²² The Judeans said, “Is he going to commit suicide? Is that what he means when he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” ²³ Yeshua said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. ²⁴ This is why I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not trust that I AM [who I say I am], you will die in your sins.”

²⁵ At this, they said to him, “You? Who are you?” Yeshua answered, “Just what I’ve been telling you from the start. ²⁶ There are many things I could say about you, and many judgments I could make. However, the One who sent me is true; so I say in the world only what I have heard from him.” ²⁷ They did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father. ²⁸ So Yeshua said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM [who I say I am], and that of myself I do nothing, but say only what the Father has taught me. ²⁹ Also, the One who sent me is still with me; he did not leave me to myself, because I always do what pleases him.”

³⁰ Many people who heard him say these things trusted in him. ³¹ So Yeshua said to the Judeans who had trusted him, “If you obey what I say, then you are really my talmidim, ³² you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ³³ They answered, “We are the seed of Avraham and have never been slaves to anyone; so what do you mean by saying, ‘You will be set free’?” ³⁴ Yeshua answered them, “Yes, indeed! I tell you that everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. ³⁵ Now a slave does not remain with a family forever, but a son does remain with it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son frees you, you will really be free! ³⁷ I know you are the seed of Avraham. Yet you are out to kill me, because what I am saying makes no headway in you. ³⁸ I say what my Father has shown me; you do what your father has told you!”

³⁹ They answered him, “Our father is Avraham.” Yeshua replied, “If you are children of Avraham, then do the things Avraham did! ⁴⁰ As it is, you are out to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Avraham did nothing like that! ⁴¹ You are doing the things your father does.” “We’re not illegitimate children!” they said to him. “We have only one Father — God!” ⁴² Yeshua replied to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me; because I came out from God; and now I have arrived here. I did not come on my own; he sent me. ⁴³ Why don’t you understand what I’m saying? Because you can’t bear to listen to my message. ⁴⁴ You belong to your father, Satan, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. From the start he was a murderer, and he has never stood by the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is speaking in character; because he is a liar — indeed, the inventor of the lie! ⁴⁵ But as for me, because I tell the truth you don’t believe me. ⁴⁶ Which one of you can show me where I’m wrong? If I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever belongs to God listens to what God says; the reason you don’t listen is that you don’t belong to God.”

⁴⁸ The Judeans answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying you are from Shomron and have a demon?” ⁴⁹ Yeshua replied, “Me? I have no demon. I am honoring my Father. But you dishonor me. ⁵⁰ I am not seeking praise for myself. There is One who is seeking it, and he is the judge. ⁵¹ Yes, indeed! I tell you that whoever obeys my teaching will never see death.”

⁵² The Judeans said to him, “Now we know for sure that you have a demon! Avraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, ‘Whoever obeys my teaching will never taste death.’ ⁵³ Avraham avinu died; you aren’t greater than he, are you? And the prophets also died. Who do you think you are?” ⁵⁴ Yeshua answered, “If I praise myself, my praise counts for nothing. The One who is praising me is my Father, the very one about whom you keep saying, ‘He is our God.’ ⁵⁵ Now you have not known him, but I do know him; indeed, if I were to say that I don’t know him, I would be a liar like you! But I do know him, and I obey his word. ⁵⁶ Avraham, your father, was glad that he would see my day; then he saw it and was overjoyed.”

⁵⁷ “Why, you’re not yet fifty years old,” the Judeans replied, “and you have seen Avraham?” ⁵⁸ Yeshua said to them, “Yes, indeed! Before Avraham came into being, I AM!” ⁵⁹ At this, they picked up stones to throw at him; but Yeshua was hidden and left the Temple grounds.