John 5 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

After this, there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there's a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways.

Under these walkways lay crowds of sick people — blind, unable to walk, paralyzed — waiting for the water to move.

[Some manuscripts add: because an angel of the Lord would come down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. The first person to step in after the water was stirred would be healed of whatever disease they had.]

One man there had been dealing with his condition for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he'd been like this for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

The sick man answered him, "Sir, I don't have anyone to put me into the pool when the water gets stirred up. While I'm trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me."

Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk."

Immediately the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking. Now this happened on a Sabbath day.

So the Jewish leaders said to the man who'd been healed, "It's the Sabbath — you're not allowed to carry your mat."

But he told them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'"

They asked him, "Who is this man who told you to pick it up and walk?"

But the man who'd been healed had no idea who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, "Look — you've been made well. Stop your pattern of failure, so that nothing worse happens to you."

The man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

And this is why the Jewish leaders started persecuting Jesus — because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus responded to them, "My Father has never stopped working, and I'm working too."

This made the Jewish leaders even more determined to kill him — because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

So Jesus explained to them, "I'm telling you the truth: the Son can't do anything on his own — he can only do what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son does the same thing.

Because the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he's doing. And he's going to show him even greater things than this — things that will blow your minds.

Because just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, the Son also gives life to whoever he chooses.

The Father doesn't judge anyone directly — he's handed all judgment over to the Son,

so that everyone will honor the Son in the same way they honor the Father. Anyone who doesn't honor the Son doesn't honor the Father who sent him.

I'm telling you the truth: anyone who hears what I'm saying and trusts the one who sent me has limitless life. They won't face judgment — they've already crossed over from death into life.

I'm telling you the truth: a time is coming — and it's already here — when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will live.

Because just as the Father has life in himself, he has also given the Son the ability to have life in himself.

And he has given him the authority to carry out judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

Don't be shocked by this, because a time is coming when everyone in their graves will hear his voice

and come out — those who lived well rising to life, and those who lived in corruption rising to face judgment.

I can't do anything on my own. I judge based on what I hear, and my judgment is just, because I'm not pursuing what I want — I'm pursuing what the one who sent me wants.

"If I were the only one testifying about myself, my testimony wouldn't hold up.

But there is someone else who testifies about me, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

You sent people to John, and he told you the truth.

Not that I need human testimony — but I'm bringing this up so that you might be rescued.

John was a lamp that burned and shone brightly, and for a while you were happy to enjoy his light.

But I have testimony that's even more significant than John's. The work that the Father has given me to complete — the very things I'm doing — these testify that the Father has sent me.

And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You've never heard his voice or seen his form,

and his word doesn't live in you, because you don't trust the one he sent.

You study the Scriptures meticulously because you think that in them you'll find limitless life. But these are the very Scriptures that testify about me!

Yet you refuse to come to me to have that life.

"I'm not looking for human approval.

But I know you — I know that you don't have the love of God in your hearts.

I've come representing my Father, and you won't accept me. But if someone shows up representing only themselves, you'll welcome them with open arms.

How can you possibly trust me when you're so busy collecting approval from each other and never seek the approval that comes from the only God?

Don't think that I'm going to be the one accusing you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses — the very one you've put all your hope in.

Because if you really trusted Moses, you would trust me — he wrote about me.

But if you don't trust what he wrote, how are you ever going to trust what I say?"