John 5:1-15

Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. In the city of Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool surrounded by five covered porches. In Aramaic it is called Bethesda. A great number of disabled, blind, lame, and paralyzed people waited for an angel to disturb the water. The first one in the pool after the disturbance would be healed. One man in particular had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knowing that he had been there a long time, asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" "Sir," replied the invalid, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else always gets there before me." Then Jesus said to him, "Stand up. Pick up your mat, and walk!" Immediately, the man was healed. He picked up his mat and began walking. This happened on a Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "The law forbids you to carry your mat on the Sabbath." "The man who healed me," he replied, "is also the one who told me to pick up my mat and walk." So they questioned him, "Who is this man who told you to pick up your mat and walk?" But the man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn into the crowd. Later, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are healed! Sin no more, or something even worse may happen to you." Then the man went off to inform the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.