John 7:14–36

Jesus Teaches at the Feast

¹⁴When the feast was about half over, Jesus went to the Temple and began to teach. ¹⁵The people were amazed and said, “This man has never studied in school. How did he learn so much?”

¹⁶Jesus answered, “The things I teach are not my own, but they come from him who sent me. ¹⁷If people choose to do what God wants, they will know that my teaching comes from God and not from me. ¹⁸Those who teach their own ideas are trying to get honor for themselves. But those who try to bring honor to the one who sent them speak the truth, and there is nothing false in them. ¹⁹Moses gave you the law, ⁿ but none of you obeys that law. Why are you trying to kill me?”

²⁰The people answered, “A demon has come into you. We are not trying to kill you.”

²¹Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. ²²Moses gave you the law about circumcision. (But really Moses did not give you circumcision; it came from our ancestors.) And yet you circumcise a baby boy on a Sabbath day. ²³If a baby boy can be circumcised on a Sabbath day to obey the law of Moses, why are you angry at me for healing a person’s whole body on the Sabbath day? ²⁴Stop judging by the way things look, but judge by what is really right.”

Is Jesus the Christ?

²⁵Then some of the people who lived in Jerusalem said, “This is the man they are trying to kill. ²⁶But he is teaching where everyone can see and hear him, and no one is trying to stop him. Maybe the leaders have decided he really is the Christ. ²⁷But we know where this man is from. Yet when the real Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”

²⁸Jesus, teaching in the Temple, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. But I have not come by my own authority. I was sent by the One who is true, whom you don’t know. ²⁹But I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

³⁰When Jesus said this, they tried to seize him. But no one was able to touch him, because it was not yet the right time. ³¹But many of the people believed in Jesus. They said, “When the Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?”

The Leaders Try to Arrest Jesus

³²The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about Jesus. So the leading priests and the Pharisees sent some Temple guards to arrest him. ³³Jesus said, “I will be with you a little while longer. Then I will go back to the One who sent me. ³⁴You will look for me, but you will not find me. And you cannot come where I am.”

³⁵Some people said to each other, “Where will this man go so we cannot find him? Will he go to the Greek cities where our people live and teach the Greek people there? ³⁶What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘You cannot come where I am’?”