Hi, friends. I'm Annie F. Downs. Let's read the Gospels. The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament, the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

These are the stories of Jesus Christ's life on earth, the friendships, the parables, the sacrifices, the meals, the miracles.

Each month we get to read all four books, so make sure you subscribe and join us as we read the Gospels together.

Here's how this works. I'm going to read three chapters to you today, and then you can listen or read along in your own Bibles, and then I'll pray.

And that's it. So today is October 17th, and I will be reading John chapters five through seven, and this month I'm reading in the NRSV Catholic edition.

John five. After this, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem, by the sheepgate, there is a pool called in Hebrew, Bethzotha, which has five portacos in these lay many envelopes blind, lame, and paralyzed.

One man was there who had been ill for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him,

do you want to be made well? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I'm making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.

Jesus said to him, stand up, take your mat and walk. At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

That day was a Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been cured. It is a Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your mat.

But he answered them, the man who made me well said to me, take up your mat and walk. They asked him, who is the man who said to you, take it up and walk?

Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.

Later, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see, you have been made well. Do not send anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews started persecuting Jesus because he was doing such things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered them, my father is still working, and I also am working. For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he was not only breaking the Sabbath,

but was also calling God his own father, thereby making himself equal to God.

Jesus said to them, very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.

For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing,

and he will show him greater works than these so that you will be astonished.

Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

The Father judges no one, but is given all judgment to the Son so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.

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