⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that someone may eat from it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever.ⁱ And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

⁵²So the Jews began to quarrel^* among themselves,^j saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³Then Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves! ⁵⁴The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶The one who eats^* my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me and I in him. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so also the one who eats^* me—that one will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. The one who eats^* this bread will live forever.”^k

Many of Jesus’ Disciples Offended by His Teaching

⁵⁹He said these things while^* teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. ⁶⁰Thus many of his disciples, when they^* heard it,^* said, “This saying is hard! Who can understand it?” ⁶¹But Jesus, because he^* knew within himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended? ⁶²Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? ⁶³The Spirit is the one who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. ⁶⁴But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) ⁶⁵And he said, “Because of this I said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the Father.”

Peter’s Confession

⁶⁶For this reason many of his disciples drew back^l and were not walking with him any longer. ⁶⁷So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”^* ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹And we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” ⁷⁰Jesus replied to them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is the devil?” ⁷¹(Now he was speaking about Judas son of Simon Iscariot, because this one—one of the twelve—was going to betray him.)

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Footnotes

iLiterally “for the age”
*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to quarrel”)
jLiterally “with one another”
*This term is somewhat graphic and typically used for animals feeding, but the distinction from other Greek verbs for eating is difficult to convey in English
*This term is somewhat graphic and typically used for animals feeding, but the distinction from other Greek verbs for eating is difficult to convey in English
*This term is somewhat graphic and typically used for animals feeding, but the distinction from other Greek verbs for eating is difficult to convey in English
kLiterally “for the age”
*Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“teaching”) which is understood as temporal
*Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“heard”) which is understood as temporal
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“knew”) which is understood as causal
lLiterally “went away to the things behind”
*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated in the translation by the phrase “do you”