John 6:53-71
New Testament for Everyone
53 “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus replied. “If you don’t eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 Anyone who feasts upon my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of God’s coming age, and I will raise them up on the last day. 55 My flesh is true food, you see, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in them. 57 Just as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so the one who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven; it isn’t like the bread which the ancestors ate, and died. The one who eats this bread will share the life of God’s new age.”
59 He said this in the synagogue, while he was teaching in Capernaum.
Division among Jesus’ followers
60 When they heard this, many of Jesus’ disciples said, “This is difficult stuff! Who can bear to listen to it?”
61 Jesus knew in himself that his disciples were grumbling about what he’d said.
“Does this put you off?” he said. 62 “What if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before? 63 It’s the spirit that gives life; the flesh is no help. The words that I have spoken to you—they are spirit, they are life. 64 But there are some of you who don’t believe.”
Jesus knew from the beginning, you see, those who didn’t believe, and the one who was going to betray him.
65 “That’s why I said,” he went on, “that no one can come to me unless it is given to them by the father.”
66 From that time on, several of his disciples drew back, and no longer went about with him.
67 Jesus turned to the Twelve.
“You don’t want to go away too, do you?” he asked.
68 Simon Peter spoke up.
“Master,” he said, “who can we go to? You’re the one who’s got the life-giving words of the age to come! 69 We’ve come to believe it—we’ve come to know it!—that you are God’s holy one.”
70 “Well,” replied Jesus, “I chose you twelve, didn’t I? And one of you is an accuser!”
71 He was referring to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. He was one of the Twelve, and he was going to betray him.
Read full chapterScripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.
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