John 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

After this, Jesus traveled around Galilee. He deliberately avoided Judea because the Jewish leaders there were trying to kill him.

Now the Jewish Festival of Shelters was coming up.

So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea so your followers there can see the things you're doing."

"Nobody who wants to be known publicly does things in secret. Since you're doing these things, show yourself to the world."

Even his own brothers didn't believe in him.

Jesus told them, "My time hasn't arrived yet, but for you, any time works."

"The world can't hate you, but it hates me because I keep telling it that what it does is wrong."

"You go on up to the festival. I'm not going up to this festival yet because my time hasn't fully come."

After saying this, he stayed behind in Galilee.

But after his brothers had left for the festival, he went too — just not publicly, more like under the radar.

The Jewish leaders were looking for him at the festival, asking, "Where is that man?"

There was a lot of whispering about him in the crowds. Some said, "He's a good man." Others said, "No, he's misleading the people."

But nobody talked about him openly because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

Halfway through the festival, Jesus went up to the temple and started teaching.

The Jewish leaders were amazed, saying, "How does this man know so much about the Scriptures without having been formally trained?"

Jesus answered them, "What I teach isn't mine — it comes from the one who sent me."

"If anyone genuinely wants to do what God wants, they'll know whether my teaching comes from God or whether I'm just making it up on my own."

"Someone who speaks from their own agenda is looking for their own recognition. But someone who works to honor the one who sent him — that person is genuine, and there's nothing fake about them."

"Didn't Moses give you the Law? Yet not one of you actually follows it. So why are you trying to kill me?"

The crowd answered, "You're out of your mind! Who's trying to kill you?"

Jesus answered them, "I did one thing and you're all shocked by it."

"Moses gave you circumcision — not that it actually started with Moses, it goes back to the ancestors — and you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath."

"If a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses isn't broken, why are you furious with me for making someone's whole body well on the Sabbath?"

"Stop judging by appearances. Judge by what's actually right."

Some of the people from Jerusalem started saying, "Isn't this the man they're trying to kill?"

"And here he is, speaking openly, and they're not saying anything to him. Could the leaders actually know that this is The One?"

"But we know where this man is from. When The One comes, nobody is supposed to know where he comes from."

So Jesus called out while teaching in the temple, "You think you know me and where I'm from? But I didn't come on my own. The one who sent me is real — and you don't know him."

"I know him because I come from him, and he's the one who sent me."

At this, they tried to grab him, but nobody laid a hand on him because his time hadn't come yet.

But many in the crowd put their trust in him, saying, "When The One comes, will he really do more signs than this man has done?"

The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about him, so the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

Jesus said, "I'm only going to be with you a little while longer, and then I'm going back to the one who sent me."

"You'll look for me but you won't find me. And where I am, you can't come."

The Jewish leaders said to each other, "Where is this man planning to go that we won't be able to find him? Is he going to go to our people scattered among the Greeks and teach Greeks?"

"What does he mean by saying, 'You'll look for me but you won't find me,' and 'Where I am, you can't come'?"

On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and called out, "If anyone is thirsty, come to me and drink!"

"Whoever trusts in me — just as Scripture says — rivers of living water will flow from deep inside them."

He was talking about the Breath, which those who trusted in him would later receive. The Breath hadn't been given yet because Jesus hadn't yet been lifted up in glory.

When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, "This really is the Prophet."

Others said, "This is The One!" But some argued, "The One doesn't come from Galilee, does he?"

"Doesn't Scripture say that The One comes from David's family line and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?"

So the crowd was divided over him.

Some of them wanted to arrest him, but nobody actually grabbed him.

The temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him in?"

The guards answered, "Nobody has ever spoken the way this man speaks."

The Pharisees shot back, "So he's fooled you too?"

"Has a single one of the leaders or Pharisees believed in him? No!"

"But this crowd that doesn't know the Law — they're under a curse."

Nicodemus — the one who had gone to Jesus earlier and was one of them — spoke up: