John 7

Jewish leaders try to arrest Jesus

Jesus Sends His Brothers to Jerusalem

1After all of that, Jesus took his teaching on the road, traveling around Galilee. He decided against staying in Judea. Jews there were looking for a chance to kill him.

2It was almost time for the Jewish holiday of Succot (Festival of Tabernacles). [1] 3The brothers of Jesus told him, “You should leave here and head down to Judea so your followers there can see the kinds of things you’re doing. 4If you want to spread the word, you don’t keep it a secret. The world needs to meet you and see what you’re doing.” 5So, even Jesus’s brothers didn’t have confidence in his judgment.

6Jesus told them, “My time’s not up yet. But you can go there whenever you want. 7People aren’t going to hate you. But they hate me because I’m calling them out for the bad things they’re doing. 8You go on to the festival without me. I’m not going to go because my time isn’t up yet. I have a little more time left.” 9That said, he stayed in Galilee.

10After his brothers went up to the festival, Jesus went too. But he kept a low profile, going privately and not making it public. 11Jewish leaders expected to see Jesus at the festival, so they were looking for him. They went around asking, “Where could that guy be?”

12Jesus was the topic of a lot of hushed and secret conversations among the crowds in the city. Some said, “He’s one of the good guys.”

Others said, “That’s not true. He’s just the opposite. He’s leading people away from God.” 13People kept the conversation hush-hush. That’s because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders hearing them talk about Jesus.

Jesus Wows Them in the Temple

14About halfway through the weeklong festival, Jesus went to the Temple and started to teach people. 15He shocked the Jewish leaders with his knowledge of the Bible. They asked, “How can this guy know the Bible so well? He doesn’t have a formal education.”

16Jesus answered them directly. He said, “This teaching isn’t coming from anything I’ve learned. It’s coming from the one who sent me here. 17Anyone devoted to God will know that what I’m teaching comes from him and it’s not some interpretation of my own. 18People who come up with their own teachings and pitch them with authority are generally people who want praise and respect. But people who want to honor the one who sent them are the people you can trust. That person tells the truth. There’s nothing fake about a person like that. 19Moses gave you the Law, right? But there’s not one of you who honors that Law by obeying it. Tell me, why are you trying to kill me?”

20Someone in the crowd said, “Fellow, you must be demon-possessed. Who here is trying to kill you?”

21Jesus said, “You know what? I do one miracle and it wows you. 22Moses gave you the ritual of circumcision. Actually, it came from our ancestors further back, the patriarchs. [2] You’ll circumcise someone on the Sabbath. 23So tell me, if you can circumcise someone on the Sabbath, cutting away a piece of him, why do you get mad at me when I heal a man on the Sabbath and make him complete again? 24Don’t judge on first impressions. Take the time to make a good judgment.”

Is This the Messiah?

25Some of the people in Jerusalem started talking among themselves. They said, “Isn’t this the man some of them are trying to kill? 26Look at that. He’s speaking his mind like he doesn’t care what they think, and nobody is challenging him. Is it possible that our leaders already know that this man is the Messiah we’ve been waiting for? 27But how could he be the Messiah? We know where he comes from. The Messiah is supposed to appear from out of nowhere.”

28Then Jesus paused from teaching in the Temple. He yelled out, “You think you know me and where I come from? I didn’t come here on my own. I was sent here. The one who sent me is Genuine Truth. You don’t know him at all. 29But I know him. I came from him. He’s the one who sent me.”

30After that, some of the people were eager to arrest him. But no one laid a hand on him because his time wasn’t up yet. 31Many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, he’s not going to perform more miracles than this man, is he?”

32Pharisees overheard what some of the people in the crowd were secretly saying about Jesus. So they ordered the Temple guards to arrest Jesus.

33Jesus told the people, “I’m going to be with you for just a little while longer. Then I’m going back to the one who sent me here. 34You’ll look for me. You won’t find me. Where I’m going, you can’t go.”

35Then the Jews started asking each other, “Where could this man be going that we can’t go? He wouldn’t go out to Jewish communities scattered among the Greek people and start teaching the Greeks, would he? 36What in the world does he mean when he says, ‘You’ll look for me. You won’t find me. Where I’m going, you can’t go’?”

Living Water for Thirsty Souls

37On the last and most important day of the festival, [3] Jesus stood in the crowd and spoke out, “If any of you are thirsty, come here and get a drink. 38The person who believes in me will experience what the Bible promises: ‘Rivers of living water [4] will flow from his heart.’” [5]

39The living water Jesus talked about was the Spirit. People who believed in him didn’t have the Spirit yet because the Spirit hadn’t come. That’s because Jesus hadn’t finished his work yet and received the honors for it.

Crowd Splits over Jesus

40When the people heard what Jesus said, some folks in the crowd said, “This man is the real deal, a genuine prophet.”

41Others said, “He’s the Messiah.”

Still others said, “The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? 42Doesn’t the Bible say that the Messiah will come from the family of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was born?”

43The people split over him. 44Some people wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.

45The Temple guards who had been ordered to arrest him went back to the top priests and Pharisees. The Jewish leaders asked the guards, “So why didn’t you bring him here?”

46The guards said, “There is no man on earth who has ever spoken like this man does.”

47Pharisees said, “Oh come on, you haven’t been tricked by this guy too, have you? 48You don’t see any of the Jewish leaders or any of us Pharisees believing in him, do you? 49As for this mob, they don’t know a thing about the Law. God’s going to damn them.”

50Nicodemus, who had met with Jesus earlier, [6] and who was one of the leaders himself, raised a question. 51“Surely our law wouldn’t want us to convict a man without hearing from him first and finding out exactly what he’s up to, would it?”

52They said, “Seriously? You’re not from Galilee too, are you? Take a good long look in the Bible and you’ll see that no prophet ever came from Galilee.”

53Then everyone went home.

Footnotes

Intro Notes for Gospel of John

17:2

Pronounced (SUE-coat), Succot is a weeklong autumn harvest festival when Jews commemorate the exodus out of slavery in Egypt. They do this by building small huts and living in them for seven days, or at least spending some time in them, such as eating meals. It’s commonly called the Feast of Tabernacles. Jews in Jesus’s day not only used this time to reflect on where they came from but also looked forward to the day they would be freed again, this time from Roman occupation. Many expected that the Messiah would lead the way as a warrior king. They were in for a surprise.