Jesus · c. AD 29
Chapter 39
The Man Born Blind
He therefore answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
was passing by when he saw a man blind from birth.
“,” his asked him, “who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, and neither did his parents, but so that the works of God could be revealed in him. I must do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, smeared the mud on the blind man’s eyes, and told him, “Go, wash in the pool of .” (The name means “Sent.”) So the man went away and washed, and came back seeing.
The neighbors, and the people who used to see him when he was blind, said, “Isn’t this the man who sat and begged?”
Some said, “It’s him.” Others said, “He looks like him.”
“It’s me,” the man said.
So they asked him, “How were your eyes opened?”
He answered, “A man called Jesus made mud and smeared my eyes with it. He said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received my sight.”
“Where is he?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
They brought the man to the . It was a when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
The Pharisees also asked him how he could see. “He put mud on my eyes,” he said. “I washed, and I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man isn’t from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do like these?” So they were divided.
So they asked the man again, “What do you say about him? He opened your eyes.”
“He is a ,” the man said.
The Jews didn’t believe that this man had been blind and now could see until they called in his parents.
“Is this your son?” they asked them. “You say he was born blind. Then how does he see now?”
His parents answered them, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. We don’t know how he can see now, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. He’s old enough. Ask him. He’ll speak for himself.”
His parents spoke that way because they were afraid of the Jews. The Jews had already agreed that anyone who declared that Jesus was the would be put out of the . That’s why his parents said, “He’s old enough. Ask him.”
So a second time they called in the man who used to be blind. “Give glory to God,” they told him. “We know that this man is a sinner.”
He answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: though I was blind, now I see.”
They asked him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
“I told you already, and you didn’t listen,” he answered. “Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t also want to become his disciples, do you?”
Then they insulted him. “You are his disciple,” they said, “but we are disciples of . We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don’t know where he comes from.”
The man answered, “How amazing! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. But if anyone worships God and does his will, he listens to that person. Since the world began, no one has ever heard of anyone opening the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
“You were born completely in sin,” they answered, “and you’re teaching us?” And they threw him out.
Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out. He found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”
“Who is he, Lord,” the man answered, “so I can believe in him?”
“You have seen him,” Jesus told him, “and he is the one talking with you.”
“Lord, I believe!” he said, and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”
Some of the Pharisees were with him, and they heard this. “Are we blind too?” they asked him.
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, ‘We see.’ So your sin remains.”