John 6:48–71

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.

The Words of Eternal Life

⁶⁰Many of his followers heard this and said, “This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?”

⁶¹Without being told, Jesus knew that they were grumbling about this, so he said to them, “Does this make you want to give up? ⁶²Suppose, then, that you should see the Son of Man go back up to the place where he was before? ⁶³What gives life is God’s Spirit; human power is of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you bring God’s life-giving Spirit. ⁶⁴Yet some of you do not believe.” (Jesus knew from the very beginning who were the ones that would not believe and which one would betray him.) ⁶⁵And he added, “This is the very reason I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for him to do so.”

⁶⁶Because of this, many of Jesus’ followers turned back and would not go with him any more. ⁶⁷So he asked the twelve disciples, “And you—would you also like to leave?”

^68*Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. ^69*And now we believe and know that you are the Holy One who has come from God.”

⁷⁰Jesus replied, “I chose the twelve of you, didn’t I? Yet one of you is a devil!” ⁷¹He was talking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. For Judas, even though he was one of the twelve disciples, was going to betray him.