John 7:7-25

⁷The world cannot hate you, but it does hate me, because I testify that its ways are evil.

⁸Go yourselves up to the Festival; I am not going to this Festival yet, because my time has not yet come.”

⁹After telling them this, he stayed on in Galilee.

¹⁰But, when his brothers had gone up to the Festival, Jesus also went up — not publicly, but privately.

¹¹The authorities were looking for him at the Festival and asking ‘Where is he?’;

¹²and there were many whispers about him among the people, some saying ‘He is a good man;’ others, ‘No! He is leading the people astray.’

¹³No one, however, spoke freely about him, because they were afraid of the authorities.

¹⁴About the middle of the Festival week, Jesus went up into the Temple Courts, and began teaching.

¹⁵The authorities were astonished. “How has this man got his learning,” they asked, “when he has never studied?”

¹⁶So, in reply, Jesus said, “My teaching is not my own; it is his who sent me.

¹⁷If anyone has the will to do God's will, they will find out whether my teaching is from God, or whether I speak on my own authority.

¹⁸The person who speaks on their own authority seeks honor for themselves; but the one who seeks the honor of him who sent him is sincere, and there is nothing false in him.

¹⁹Was not it Moses who gave you the Law? Yet not one of you obeys it! Why are you seeking to put me to death?”

²⁰“You must be possessed by a demon!” the people exclaimed. “Who is seeking to put you to death?”

²¹“There was one thing I did,” replied Jesus, “at which you are all still wondering.

²²But that is why Moses has instituted circumcision among you — not, indeed, that it began with him, but with our ancestors — and that is why you circumcise even on a Sabbath.

²³When a man receives circumcision on a Sabbath to prevent the Law of Moses from being broken, how can you be angry with me for making a man sound and well on a Sabbath?

²⁴Do not judge by appearances; judge justly.”

²⁵At this some of the people of Jerusalem exclaimed, “Is not this the man who they are seeking to put to death?