John 5:24–47

²⁴I can guarantee this truth: Those who listen to what I say and believe in the one who sent me will have eternal life. They won’t be judged because they have already passed from death to life. 

²⁵“I can guarantee this truth: A time is coming (and is now here) when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who respond to it will live. ²⁶The Father is the source of life, and he has enabled the Son to be the source of life too. 

²⁷“He has also given the Son authority to pass judgment because he is the Son of Man.^b28Don’t be surprised at what I’ve just said. A time is coming when all the dead will hear his voice, ²⁹and they will come out of their tombs. Those who have done good will come back to life and live. But those who have done evil will come back to life and will be judged. ³⁰I can’t do anything on my own. As I listen ⸤to the Father⸥, I make my judgments. My judgments are right because I don’t try to do what I want but what the one who sent me wants. 

³¹“If I testify on my own behalf, what I say isn’t true. ³²Someone else testifies on my behalf, and I know that what he says about me is true. ³³You sent people to John ⸤the Baptizer⸥, and he testified to the truth. ³⁴But I don’t depend on human testimony. I’m telling you this to save you. ³⁵John was a lamp that gave off brilliant light. For a time you enjoyed the pleasure of his light. ³⁶But I have something that testifies more favorably on my behalf than John’s testimony. The tasks that the Father gave me to carry out, these tasks which I perform, testify on my behalf. They prove that the Father has sent me. ³⁷The Father who sent me testifies on my behalf. You have never heard his voice, and you have never seen his form. ³⁸So you don’t have the Father’s message within you, because you don’t believe in the person he has sent. ³⁹You study the Scriptures in detail because you think you have the source of eternal life in them. These Scriptures testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰Yet, you don’t want to come to me to get ⸤eternal⸥ life. 

⁴¹“I don’t accept praise from humans. ⁴²But I know what kind of people you are. You don’t have any love for God. ⁴³I have come with the authority my Father has given me, but you don’t accept me. If someone else comes with his own authority, you will accept him. ⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept each other’s praise and don’t look for the praise that comes from the only God? 

⁴⁵“Don’t think that I will accuse you in the presence of the Father. Moses, the one you trust, is already accusing you. ⁴⁶If you really believed Moses, you would believe me. Moses wrote about me. ⁴⁷If you don’t believe what Moses wrote, how will you ever believe what I say?”