John 5:2-17

²Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, there is a pool, which is called Bethesda in Hebrew. It’s surrounded by five covered colonnades.

³In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water,

⁴for an angel went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease that person had.

⁵A certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been sick for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”

⁷The sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”

⁸Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.”

⁹Immediately, the man was made well, took up his mat, and walked. That was on the Sabbath day.

¹⁰Therefore the Jews were telling him who was cured, “It’s the Sabbath, and it isn’t legal for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹He answered them, “He who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”

¹²Then they asked him, “Who told you to ‘Take up your mat and walk’?”

¹³The man who had been healed didn’t know who it was, because Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.

¹⁴Later, Jesus found him in the temple and told him, “See, you have been made well! Don’t sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

¹⁵The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶For this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”