²⁵Then some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem began to say,^* “Is this not the one whom they are seeking to kill? ²⁶And behold, he is speaking openly and they are saying nothing to him! Can it be that the rulers truly know that this man is the Christ? ²⁷Yet we know where this man is from, but the Christ, whenever he comes—no one knows where he is from!”

²⁸Then Jesus cried out in the temple courts,^* teaching and saying, “You both know me and you know where I am from! And I have not come from myself, but the one who sent me is true, whom you do not know. ²⁹I know him, because I am from him and he sent me.”

³⁰So they were seeking to seize him, and no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. ³¹But from the crowd many believed in him and were saying, “Whenever the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than this man has done, will he?”^*

³²The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers in order to take him into custody .^g ³³Then Jesus said, “Yet a little time I am with you, and I am going to the one who sent me. ³⁴You will seek me and will not find me,^*^h and where I am, you cannot come.”

³⁵So the Jews said to one another, “Where is this one going to go, that we will not find him? He is not going to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he?^* ³⁶What is this saying that he said, ‘You will seek me and will not find me,^*ⁱ and where I am, you cannot come’?”

The Promise of the Spirit

³⁷Now on the last day of the feast—the great day—Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let him drink, ³⁸the one who believes in me.^j Just as the scripture said, ‘Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.’ ”^k ³⁹(Now he said this concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. For the Spirit was not yet given,^l because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)

Different Opinions About Jesus

⁴⁰Then, when they^* heard these words, some from the crowd began to say,^* “This man is truly the Prophet!” ⁴¹Others were saying, “This man is the Christ!” But others were saying, “No, for the Christ does not come from Galilee, does he?^* ⁴²Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” ⁴³So there was a division in the crowd because of him. ⁴⁴And some of them were wanting to seize him, but no one laid hands on him.

Read in Logos

John 7:37–38: On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‛Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Footnotes

*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
*Here “courts” is supplied to distinguish this area from the interior of the temple building itself
*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated in the translation by the phrase “will he”
gLiterally “that they could seize him”
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
hSome manuscripts explicitly state “me”
*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated in the translation by the phrase “is he”
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
iSome manuscripts explicitly state “me”
jAn alternative punctuation of vv. 37–38 reads: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. 38 The one who believes in me, just as the scripture said, ‘Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
kA quotation from the Old Testament of uncertain origin; texts most often suggested are Isa 44:3; 55:1; 58:11; Zech 14:8
lA few manuscripts supply the participle “given” here; while it is unlikely this represents the original reading, many English versions nevertheless supply “given” to avoid the impression that the Spirit did not exist prior to this point
*Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“heard”) which is understood as temporal
*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated in the translation by the phrase “does he”