John 6:41–59

⁴¹The people started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²So they said, “This man is Jesus son of Joseph, isn’t he? We know his father and mother. How, then, does he now say he came down from heaven?”

⁴³Jesus answered, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me; and I will raise him to life on the last day. ^45*The prophets wrote, ‘Everyone will be taught by God.’ Anyone who hears the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶This does not mean that anyone has seen the Father; he who is from God is the only one who has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. ⁵⁰But the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live for ever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.”

⁵²This started an angry argument among them. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

⁵³Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. ⁵⁷The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate. They later died, but those who eat this bread will live for ever.”

⁵⁹Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum.