Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
John 7
Jesus and the Festival of Booths
After this Jesus continued moving about in Galilee. He did not want to travel in Judea because the Jewish leaders were seeking to kill him. The Jewish Festival of Booths was near. So his brothers told him, “Leave here and go to Judea so your disciples can also see the works you are doing. No one does things in secret while trying to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For even his brothers did not trust in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet been fulfilled.” After saying these things, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers went up to the festival, he also went up—not publicly but in secret.
Debate at the Festival
The Jewish leaders were looking for him at the festival and asking, “Where is he?” There was much murmuring about him among the crowds. Some said, “He is good.” Others said, “No, he is misleading the crowd.” Yet no one spoke openly about him because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities. About halfway through the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jewish leaders were amazed and asked, “How does this man know the Scriptures without having studied?” Jesus answered, “My teaching is not mine but belongs to the one who sent me. If anyone wants to do his will, that person will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I speak from myself. Whoever speaks from themselves seeks their own glory, but whoever seeks the glory of the one who sent them is true, and there is no unrighteousness in that person. Did not Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you keeps the Law. Why are you seeking to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered, “I did one work, and you are all amazed. Moses gave you circumcision—though it is not from Moses but from the ancestors—and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that Moses’ Law is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a whole person well on the Sabbath? Do not judge by appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
Where Is Jesus From?
Some Jerusalem residents began saying, “Is this not the man they are seeking to kill? Look, he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers really know he is the Christ? But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one knows where he is from.” Then Jesus cried out while teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come from myself. The one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.” They tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Many from the crowd trusted in him and said, “When the Christ comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?” The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about him, so the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple officers to arrest him. Jesus said, “I am with you only a little longer, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me and not find me, and where I am you cannot come.” The Jewish leaders said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Jewish Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, ‘You will look for me and not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
Rivers of Living Water
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. Whoever trusts in me, as Scripture has said, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within them.’” He said this about the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were about to receive. For the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Division and Official Resistance
When some people in the crowd heard these words, they said, “This truly is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some asked, “Surely the Christ does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not Scripture said the Christ comes from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him. Then the officers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one has ever spoken like this man.” The Pharisees answered, “Have you also been deceived? Has any ruler or Pharisee trusted in him? But this crowd, which does not know the Law, is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and was one of them, said, “Does our Law judge a person without first hearing from them and learning what they are doing?” They answered, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Ancient Textual Tradition: The Woman Caught in Adultery Begins
Then each person went to their own house.