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Jesus Goes to the Festival of
Tabernacles
1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not
want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there
were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish
Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus’ brothers said to
him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples
there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become
a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these
things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own
brothers did not believe in him.
6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here;
for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but
it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You
go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival,
because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 Having said this,
he stayed in Galilee.
10 However, after his brothers had left for the
festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now
at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus
and asking, “Where is he?”
12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering
about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied,
“No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say
anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.
Jesus Teaches at the Festival
14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go
up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews
there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such
learning without having been taught?”
16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes
from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the
will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God
or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own
does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory
of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing
false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not
one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who
is trying to kill you?”
21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are
all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision
(though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the
patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if
a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of
Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for
healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging
by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”
Division Over Who Jesus Is
25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began
to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here
he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to
him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the
Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the
Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”
28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts,
cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from.
I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is
true. You do not know him 29 but I know him because I am
from him and he sent me.”
30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a
hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still,
many in the crowd put their faith in him. They said, “When
the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this
man?”
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things
about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent
temple guards to arrest him.
33 Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time,
and then I go to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for
me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot
come.”
35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man
intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our
people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the
Greeks? 36 What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for
me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot
come’? ”
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus
stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty
come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as
Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from
within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who
believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the
Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been
glorified.
40 On hearing his words, some of the people said,
“Surely this man is the Prophet.”
41 Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others
asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not
Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s
descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?”
43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some
wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.
Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief
priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you
bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the
guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees
retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees
believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of
the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was
one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a
man without first hearing him to find out what he has been
doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into
it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of
Galilee.”
[The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses
do not have John 7:53-8:11.]
53 Then they all went home.
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Cults 
Why Did God Permit Sin?
