for I have come down from heaven not to carry out my own will but the will of him who sent me,

Now the Jews murmured at him for saying, "I am the bread which has come down from heaven."

They said, "Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he claim now, 'I have come down from heaven'?"

In the prophets it is written, and they will be all instructed by God; everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him, comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the Father ??he only, who is from God, he has seen the Father.

the bread that comes down from heaven is such that one eats of it and never dies.

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and more, the bread I will give is my flesh, given for the life of the world."

Such is the bread which has come down from heaven: your ancestors ate their bread and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live for ever."

And yet there are some of you who do not believe" (for Jesus knew from the very first who the unbelieving were, and who was to betray him;

anyone who chooses to do his will, shall understand whether my teaching comes from God or whether I am talking on my own authority.

Moses gave you the rite of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, it came from your ancestors), and you will circumcise a man upon the sabbath.

No, we know where this man comes from; but when the Christ does come, no one will know where he comes from."

So Jesus cried aloud, as he was teaching in the temple, "You know me? you know where I come from? But I have not come on my own initiative; I am sent, and sent by Him who is real. You do not know Him,

but I know Him, because I have come from Him and He sent me."

others said, "He is the Christ"; but others said, "No, surely the Christ does not come from Galilee?

Does not scripture say it is from the offspring of David, from David's village of Bethlehem, that the Christ is to come?"

They answered him, "And are you from Galilee, too? Search and you will see that no prophet ever springs from Galilee."

Jesus replied to them, "Though I do testify to myself, my evidence is valid, because I know where I have come from and where I am going to ??whereas you do not know where I have come from or where I am going to.

He said to them, "You are from the world below, I am from the world above: you belong to this world, I do not belong to this world.

I have a great deal to say about you and many a judgment to pass upon you; but he who sent me is true, and so I tell the world what I have learned from him."

I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you act as you have learned from your father."

but now you want to kill me ??to kill a man who has told you the truth, the truth I have learned from God. Abraham did not do that.

Said Jesus, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came here from God; I did not come of my own accord, I was sent by him.

You belong to your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires; he was a slayer of men from the very beginning, and he has no place in the truth because there is no truth in him: when he tells a lie, he is expressing his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

As he passed along he saw a man who had been blind from his birth;

Then said some of the Pharisees, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath"; others said, "How can a sinner perform such Signs?" They were divided on this.

We know God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this fellow comes from."

The man replied to them, "Well, this is astonishing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he has opened my eyes!

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

they will not follow a stranger, they will run from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."

No one takes it from me, I lay it down of my own accord: I have power to lay it down and also power to take it up again; I have my Father's orders for this.

& 31] Now as Bethany is not far from Jerusalem, only about two miles away,

Whereupon the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" ??37 though some of them asked, "Could he not have prevented him from dying, when he could open a blind man's eyes?"

So from that day their plan was to kill him.

Now the passover of the Jews was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem, to purify themselves before the passover.

Six days before the festival, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus stayed (whom Jesus had raised from the dead).

Now the great mass of the Jews learned he was there, and they came not only on account of Jesus but to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead.

Now the people who were with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead, testified to it;

My soul is now disquieted. What am I to say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? Nay, it is something else that has brought me to this hour:

I will say, 'Father, glorify thy name.'" Then came a voice from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."

But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."

So the people answered, "We have learned from the Law that the Christ is to remain for ever; what do you mean by saying that the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?"

Now for all the Signs he had performed before them, they did not believe in him ??38 that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: Lord, who has believed what they heard from us, And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

are relocated after vs 50] With these words Jesus went away and hid from them.

Now before the passover festival Jesus knew the time had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had loved his own in this world and he loved them to the end;

the Father had put everything into his hands ??knowing that he had come from God and was going to God,

he rose from table, laid aside his robe, and tied a towel round him,

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in me, as I in him, bears rich fruit (because apart from me you can do nothing).

I call you servants no longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing: I call you friends, because I have imparted to you all that I have learned from my Father.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love what it owned; it is because you do not belong to the world, because I have chosen you from the world, that the world hates you.

When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which issues from the Father, he will bear witness to me;

and you too are witnesses, for you have been with me from the very beginning.

I have told you all this, to keep you from being repelled.

So with you. Just now you are in sorrow, but I shall see you again and your heart will rejoice ??with a joy that no one can take from you.

for the Father loves you himself, because you have loved me and believed that I came forth from God.

From the Father I came and I entered the world; again, I leave the world and I go to the Father."

Now we are sure you know everything, and need no one to put questions to you. This makes us believe you have come forth from God."

I have made thy Name known to the men whom thou hast given to me from the world (thine they were, and thou gavest them to me), and they have held to thy word.

They know now that whatever thou hast given me comes from thee,

for I have given them the words thou gavest me, and they have received them; they are now sure that I came from thee and believe that thou didst send me.

I pray not that thou wilt take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep them from the evil one.

Then from the house of Caiaphas they took Jesus to the praetorium. (It was early morning.) They would not enter the praetorium themselves, in case of being ceremonially defiled, for they wanted to eat the passover;

he went inside the praetorium again and asked Jesus, "Where do you come from?" Jesus made no reply.

Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me, unless it had been granted you from above. So you are less guilty than he who betrayed me to you."

Then he said to the disciple, "And, there is your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his home.

On the first day of the week Mary of Magdala went early to the tomb, when it was still dark; but as she saw the boulder had been removed from the tomb,

(For as yet they did not understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead.)

Simon Peter, Thomas (who was called 'the Twin'), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the two sons of Zebedaeus, and two other disciples of his, were all together.

while the rest of the disciples came ashore in the punt (they were not far from land, only about a hundred yards), dragging their netful of fish.

This was the third time, now, that Jesus appeared to the disciples after rising from the dead.

who said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back, just as you have seen him depart to heaven."

Then they made their way back to Jerusalem from the hill called 'The Olive-Orchard'; it is close to Jerusalem, only a sabbath day's journey from it.

from the baptism of John down to the day when he was taken up from us ??of these men one must join us as a witness to his resurrection."

and they prayed, "O Lord, who readest the hearts of all, do thou single out from these two men him whom thou hast chosen

when suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a violent blast of wind, which filled the whole house where they were seated.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.

in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and the districts of Libya round Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Jews and proselytes,

Uplifted then by God's right hand, and receiving from the Father the long-promised holy Spirit, he has poured on us what you now see and hear.)

And with many another appeal he urged and entreated them. "Save yourselves," he cried, "from this crooked generation!"

when a man lame from birth was carried past, who used to be laid every day at what was called the 'Beautiful Gate' of the temple, to ask alms from those who entered the temple.

The man attended, expecting to get something from them.

and you killed the pioneer of Life. But God raised him from the dead, as we can bear witness.

for Moses said, The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brotherhood, as he raised me: you must listen to whatever he may tell you.

Any soul that will not listen to this prophet shall be exterminated from the People;

It was for you first that God raised up his Servant, and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

who were annoyed at them teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus as an instance of resurrection from the dead.

you and the people of Israel must all understand that he stands before you strong and well, thanks to the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead.

Ordering them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin, they proceeded to hold a consultation.

However, to keep things from going any further with the people, we had better threaten them that they are not to tell anyone in future about this Name."

Though the people extolled them, not a soul from the outside dared to join them.

Crowds gathered even from the towns round Jerusalem, bringing invalids and people troubled with unclean spirits, all of whom were healed.

So I advise you to-day to leave these men to themselves. Let them alone. If this project or enterprise springs from men, it will collapse;

whereas, if it really springs from God, you will be unable to put them down. You may even find yourselves fighting God!"

This plan commended itself to the whole body, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nikanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nikolaos a proselyte from Antioch;

Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and stayed in Haran. From Haran God shifted him, after his father's death, to this land which you now inhabit.

rescuing him from all his troubles and allowing him to find favour for his wisdom with Pharaoh king of Egypt, who appointed him viceroy over Egypt and over all his own household.

they were carried across to Shechem and laid in the tomb which Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

He took a cunning method with our race; he oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to expose their infants, to prevent them from surviving.

(This was the Moses who told the sons of Israel, 'God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brotherhood, as he raised me.')

So God turned from them, abandoning them to the worship of the starry Host ??as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did you offer me victims and sacrifices during the forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?