8. Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat and walk!”
9. At once the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.
10. When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, “This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath.”
11. But he replied, “The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk.”
12. They asked him, “Who is this man that told you to pick up your mat and walk?”
13. But he did not know who Jesus was, and Jesus had left because of the crowd.
14. Later, Jesus met the man in the temple and told him, “You are now well. But don't sin any more or something worse might happen to you.”
15. The man left and told the leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him.
16. They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.
17. But Jesus said, “My Father has never stopped working, and that is why I keep on working.”
18. Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.
19. Jesus told the people:I tell you for certain that the Son cannot do anything on his own. He can do only what he sees the Father doing, and he does exactly what he sees the Father do.
20. The Father loves the Son and has shown him everything he does. The Father will show him even greater things, and you will be amazed.
21. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants to.
22. The Father doesn't judge anyone, but he has made his Son the judge of everyone.
23. The Father wants all people to honour the Son as much as they honour him. When anyone refuses to honour the Son, that is the same as refusing to honour the Father who sent him.
24. I tell you for certain that everyone who hears my message and has faith in the one who sent me has eternal life and will never be condemned. They have already gone from death to life.