22Now it was the Feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23and Jesus was walking in the temple courts, in Solomon's Portico. 24So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25Jesus answered them, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify about me, 26but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep, just as I told you. 27My sheep hear my voice0x3B I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will certainly never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one.” 31Then the Jews picked up stones again to stone him. 32In response Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father0x3B for which of these works are you going to stone me?” 33The Jews answered him, “We are not going to stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God.” 34Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. 38But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.” 39Again they sought to arrest him, but he eluded their grasp. |