Balaam’s First Message

23 Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams^(A) for me.” ² Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.^(B)

³ Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me.^(C) Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.

⁴ God met with him,^(D) and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”

⁵ The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth^(E) and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”^(F)

⁶ So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the Moabite officials.^{(G) 7} Then Balaam^(H) spoke his message:^(I)

¹¹ Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies,^(T) but you have done nothing but bless them!”^(U)

¹² He answered, “Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”^(V)

Balaam’s Second Message

¹³ Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place^(W) where you can see them; you will not see them all but only the outskirts of their camp.^(X) And from there, curse them for me.^(Y)” ¹⁴ So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah,^(Z) and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.^(AA)

¹⁵ Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”

¹⁶ The Lord met with Balaam and put a word in his mouth^(AB) and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”

¹⁷ So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the Moabite officials.^(AC) Balak asked him, “What did the Lord say?”

¹⁸ Then he spoke his message:^(AD)

²⁵ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”

²⁶ Balaam answered, “Did I not tell you I must do whatever the Lord says?”^(AW)

Balaam’s Third Message

²⁷ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me take you to another place.^(AX) Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me^(AY) from there.” ²⁸ And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor,^(AZ) overlooking the wasteland.

²⁹ Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ³⁰ Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.^(BA)

Songs of Praise

12 In that day^(A) you will say:

⁴ In that day^(L) you will say:

The Healing at the Pool

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate^(A) a pool, which in Aramaic^(B) is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^{[4] [b] 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”^{(C) 9} At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,^{(D) 10} and so the Jewish leaders^(E) said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”^(F)

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning^(G) or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders^(H) that it was Jesus who had made him well.

The Authority of the Son

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷ In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father^(I) is always at his work^(J) to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him;^(K) not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.^(L)

¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself;^(M) he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son^(N) and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these,^(O) so that you will be amazed. ²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,^(P) even so the Son gives life^(Q) to whom he is pleased to give it. ²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,^{(R) 23} that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.^(S)

ל Lamedh