John 5:1-13 - A Paralytic Is Healed

¹ Later on there was a Jewish feast (festival), and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew (Jewish Aramaic) Bethesda, having five porticoes (alcoves, colonnades). ³ In these porticoes lay a great number of people who were sick, blind, lame, withered, [waiting for the stirring of the water; ⁴ for an angel of the Lord went down into the pool at appointed seasons and stirred up the water; the first one to go in after the water was stirred was healed of his disease.]

⁵ There was a certain man there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ The invalid answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming [to get into it myself], someone else steps down ahead of me.”

⁸ Jesus said to him, “Get up; pick up your pallet and walk.” ⁹ Immediately the man was healed and recovered his strength, and picked up his pallet and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. ¹⁰ So the Jews kept saying to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to pick up your pallet [because it is unlawful].”

¹¹ He answered them, “The Man who healed me and gave me back my strength was the One who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’”

¹² They asked him, “Who is the Man who told you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?” ¹³ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away [unnoticed] since there was a crowd in that place.