51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live for ever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.”
52. This started an angry argument among them. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.
53. Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves.
54. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day.
55. For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink.
56. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them.
57. The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me.
58. This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate. They later died, but those who eat this bread will live for ever.”
59. Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60. Many of his followers heard this and said, “This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?”
61. Without being told, Jesus knew that they were grumbling about this, so he said to them, “Does this make you want to give up?
62. Suppose, then, that you should see the Son of Man go back up to the place where he was before?
63. What gives life is God's Spirit; human power is of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you bring God's life-giving Spirit.
64. Yet some of you do not believe.” (Jesus knew from the very beginning who were the ones that would not believe and which one would betray him.)
65. And he added, “This is the very reason I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for him to do so.”
66. Because of this, many of Jesus' followers turned back and would not go with him any more.
67. So he asked the twelve disciples, “And you — would you also like to leave?”