A paralytic healed

The Healing at the Pool

1 After this, Jesus went to Jerusalem for a religious festival. 2 Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool with five porches; in Hebrew it is called Bethesda. 3 A large crowd of sick people were lying in the porches — the blind, the lame, and the paralysed. They were waiting for the water to move, 4 because every now and then an angel of the Lord went down into the pool and stirred up the water. The first sick person to go into the pool after the water was stirred up was healed from whatever disease he had. 5 A man was there who had been ill for 38 years. 6Jesus saw him lying there, and he knew that the man had been ill for such a long time; so he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7 The sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one here to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am trying to get in, somebody else gets there first.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” 9 Immediately the man got well; he picked up his mat and started walking.

The day this happened was a Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish authorities told the man who had been healed, “This is a Sabbath, and it is against our Law for you to carry your mat.” 11 He answered, “The man who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk.” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who told you to do this?” 13 But the man who had been healed did not know who Jesus was, for there was a crowd in that place, and Jesus had slipped away.

14 Afterwards, Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “Listen, you are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man left and told the Jewish authorities that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 So they began to persecute Jesus, because he had done this healing on a Sabbath.