John 6:1-71
6 After this Jesus went off to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (of Tiberias).
2 And a great crowd followed him, because they saw the tokens he was doing on the sick.
3 And Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat there with his disciples.
4 And the passover, the Jews’ feast, was near.
5 So Jesus, raising his eyes and seeing the sight of a great crowd coming to him, said to Philip “Where shall we buy bread for these to eat?”
6 But he was saying this to test him; for he himself knew what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not enough for them each to take a little bit.”
8 One of his disciples, Simon Peter’s brother Andrew, said to him
9 “There is a child here who has five barley cakes and two fish for relish; but what is that for so many?”
10 Jesus said “Have the men take their seats.” And there was much grass in the place; so the men took their seats, in number about five thousand.
11 * So Jesus took the cakes and gave thanks and distributed to the men on the grass, similarly of the fish too, as much as they wanted.
12 And when they were filled he said to his disciples “Pick up the fragments that were left over so that there shall not be anything lost.”
13 * So they did it, and filled twelve baskets with fragments that the eaters had had left over from the five barley cakes.
14 So the men, seeing the token he did, said “This positively is the prophet that was to come into the world.”
15 So Jesus, finding that they were going to come and seize him to make a king of him, withdrew to the mountainside again alone by himself.
16 And when it came evening his disciples went down to the sea
17 and got into a boat and were coming to Capernaum on the other side of the sea; and darkness had already come down and Jesus had not yet come to them,
18 and the sea was being stirred up as a high wind blew.
19 So they had rowed about three or four miles when they saw Jesus walking on the sea and getting near the boat, and they were afraid.
20 But he said to them “It is I, do not be afraid”;
21 so they were willing to take him into the boat, and at once the boat was at the land they were bound for.
22 The next day the crowd that was standing on the other side of the sea saw that there had been no other boat there but one, and that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples but the disciples had gone off alone.
23 But boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord gave thanks;
24 so when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves went on board the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus;
25 and, finding him on the other side of the sea, they said to him “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus replied to them “Verily, verily I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw tokens but because you ate out of the bread and satisfied your appetites.
27 Work not for perishable food but for the food that lasts into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for him the Father, God, sealed.”
28 So they said to him “What shall we do to do God’s work?”
29 Jesus replied to them “This is God’s work, for you to believe in the one he sent.”
30 So they said to him “Then what token do you do so that we may see and believe you? what do you do?
31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert, as it says ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 So Jesus said to them “Verily, verily I tell you, not Moses has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven;
33 for God’s bread is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives the world life.”
34 So they said to him “Sir, give us this bread always.”
35 Jesus said to them “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not go hungry, and he who believes in me shall not go thirsty, ever;
36 * but I told you you have even seen and do not believe.
37 Whatever the Father gives me will come to me; and I will not turn out the one who comes to me,
38 because I have come down from heaven not to do my will but the will of the one who sent me.
39 And this is the will of the one who sent me, that of whatever he has given me I should not lose any but should raise it on the Last Day.
40 For this is my Father’s will, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I should raise him on the Last Day.”
41 So the Jews complained of him because he said “I am the bread that came down from heaven,”
42 and said “Why, this is Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know; how is he saying now ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43 Jesus replied to them “Do not complain to each other.
44 * Nobody can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I shall raise him on the Last Day.
45 It says in the prophets ‘and they shall all be taught of God’; everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to me;
46 not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God, he has seen the Father.
47 “Verily, verily I tell you, he who believes has eternal life.
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and died;
50 this is the bread that comes down from heaven for a man to eat of and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if one eats of this bread he will live forever; yes, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
52 So the Jews wrangled with each other, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 So Jesus said to them “Verily, verily I tell you, if you do not eat the Son of Man’s flesh and drink his blood you do not have life in you.
54 He who does feast on my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the Last Day;
55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
56 He who feasts on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, he also who feasts on me will live too because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died; he who feasts on this bread will live forever.”
59 This he said in a synagogue as he was teaching in Capernaum;
60 so many of his disciples, hearing it, said “These words come hard; who can listen to him?”
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were complaining about this, said to them “Does this stagger you?
62 so if you see the Son of Man go up where he was formerly—
63 The spirit is what gives life; the flesh is of no use; the words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who it was that did not believe and who it was that was to be the agent in his arrest.
65 And he said “That is why I have been saying to you that nobody can come to me unless it is given to him from the Father.”
66 At this many of his disciples backed off and no longer went about with him.
67 So Jesus said to the Twelve “Do you too mean to go?”
68 Simon Peter answered him “Sir, to whom shall we go? you have words of eternal life,
69 and for our part we do believe and know that you are God’s Holy One.”
70 Jesus answered them “Did I not choose you twelve? and one of you is a backbiter.”
71 He meant Judas the son of Simon an Iscariot; for he, one of the Twelve, was going to be the agent in his arrest.
Footnotes
^ 6:11 Or grass; similarly
^ 6:13 Lit. fragments from the five barley cakes, that the eaters had had left over
^ 6:36 Var. seen me and do not
^ 6:44 Lit. I will raise
