John 5:5–15

⁵One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”^{w 9}At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,^{x 10}and so the Jewish leaders^y said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”^z

¹¹But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹²So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning^a or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jewish leaders^b that it was Jesus who had made him well.