The Light of the World

The Pharisees said to him, “You are speaking as a witness for yourself. Your witness doesn’t count.”

Jesus answered them, “Even if I am a witness for myself, my witness is true, since I know where I came from and where I am going. But you don’t know where I came from or where I am going. You judge the way humans do. I judge no one. And even if I do judge, my judgment is true, because I am not alone: I am with the Father who sent me.

“It is also written in your law that the witness of two people counts. I am a witness for myself, and the Father who sent me is a witness for me.”

“Where is your Father?” they asked him.

Jesus answered, “You don’t know me, and you don’t know my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father too.”

Jesus said these things in the treasury, while he was teaching in the temple. Yet no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

So the Jews said, “Will he take his own life, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come’?”

Jesus said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. That is why I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”

“Who are you?” they asked him.

Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say about you, and many things to judge. Yet the one who sent me is true. What I heard from him is what I say to the world.”

They didn’t understand that he was talking to them about the Father.

Then Jesus told them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing on my own. I say these things as my Father taught me. He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, because I always do the things that please him.”

As he said these things, many believed in him.

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s offspring, and we have never been slaves to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “I tell you for certain, everyone who sins is sin’s slave. A slave doesn’t stay in the house forever. A son stays forever. So then, if the Son makes you free, you will really be free.

“I know that you are Abraham’s offspring. Yet you are trying to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I say the things I have seen with my Father, and you also do the things you have seen with your father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do as Abraham did. I am a man who has told you the truth I heard from God, but now you are trying to kill me. Abraham didn’t do this. You do what your father does.”

“We weren’t born from sexual sin,” they said to him. “We have one Father: God.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, since I came out from God and have come here. I didn’t come on my own. He sent me. Why don’t you understand the things I say? It is because you can’t hear my word.

“You come from your father the devil, and you want to do what your father wants. He was a murderer from the beginning. He doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks from his own self, since he is a liar and the father of lies.

“But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me. Which of you can show that I have sinned? If I tell the truth, why don’t you believe me? Those who come from God hear God’s words. This is why you don’t hear: you don’t come from God.”

Jesus answered, “I don’t have a demon. I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. But I don’t look for glory for myself. There is one who looks for it, and who judges. I tell you for certain, anyone who keeps my word will never see death.”

Then the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as the prophets did, and you say, ‘Anyone who keeps my word will never die.’ Are you greater than Abraham, our father, who died? The prophets died too. Who are you claiming to be?”

Jesus answered, “If I give myself glory, that glory is nothing. It is my Father who gives me glory, the one you call ‘our God.’ You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you: a liar. But I know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

So the Jews said to him, “You’re not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.”

So they picked up stones to throw at Jesus. But he hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the middle of them, and so he went on his way.