These men had been sent from the Pharisees;

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a leading man among the Jews.

Now, when the Master heard that the Pharisees had been told that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John

The Pharisees heard the people whispering about him in this way, and so the Chief Priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him;

When the officers returned to the Chief Priests and Pharisees, they were asked: "Why have you not brought him?"

"What! Have you been led astray too?" the Pharisees replied.

"Have any of our leading men believed in him, or any of the Pharisees?

"You are bearing testimony to yourself!" exclaimed the Pharisees, "your testimony is not trustworthy."

They took the man, who had been blind, to the Pharisees.

So the Pharisees also questioned the man as to how he had gained his sight. "He put clay on my eyes," he answered, "and I washed them, and I can see."

"The man cannot be from God," said some of the Pharisees, "for he does not keep the Sabbath." "How is it possible," retorted others, "for a bad man to give signs like this?"

Hearing this, some of the Pharisees who were with him said: "Then are we blind too?"

Some of them, however, went to the Pharisees, and told them what he had done.

Upon this the Chief Priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the High Council, and said: "What are we to do, now that this man is giving so many signs?

The Chief Priests and the Pharisees had already issued orders that, if any one learned where Jesus was, he should give information, so that they might arrest him.

So the Pharisees said to one another: "You see that you are gaining nothing! Why, all the world has run after him!"

Yet for all this, even among the leading men there were many who came to believe in Jesus; but, on account of the Pharisees, they did not acknowledge it, for fear that they should be expelled from their Synagogues;

So Judas, who had obtained the soldiers of the Roman garrison, and some police-officers from the Chief Priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.