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9
Jesus made a blind man’s eyes better
1 As Jesus walked along with his followers, they saw a blind man that was blind all his life, from the time he was born. 2 Jesus’s followers asked him, “Teacher, why did God make this man blind from the time he was born? Did he do something bad, or did his parents?”
3 Jesus said, “No. This man didn’t do anything bad to make him blind, and his parents didn’t do anything bad to make him blind either. He is blind so that everyone can see God’s great power. You see, I am going to make him better. 4-5 We have to keep on doing God’s work while we can. He is the one that sent me here and gave me this special work to do. You see, my work shows God’s great power, so I am like a light for all the people in the world. I have to do God’s work while I am here. It is like I am working in day-light. But I will not always be here to do the work that God gave me. Then it will be like night time, and nobody can work at night time.”*Matthew 5:14; John 8:12
6 After he said that, Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud. Then he put the mud on the blind man’s eyes. 7 Then Jesus said to him, “Go and wash your eyes in the pool called Siloam.” (That word Siloam means sent.)
So the man went and washed his eyes, and he could see. He came back, 8 and some of the people that lived near him, and the people that used to see him asking for money, they were there. And they asked each other, “Is he the man that sat next to the road and asked for money all the time?”
9 Some people said, “Yes, that’s him.”
But other people said, “No, he’s another man. He just looks like the blind man.”
But the man kept on saying, “I am the man that was blind.”
10 So they asked him, “How come you can see now?”
11 He said, “The man that people call Jesus, he made mud and put it on my eyes. Then he told me to go and wash my eyes in the pool called Siloam. So I did what he said, and straight away I could see.”
12 The people asked him, “Where is that man?”
And he said, “I don’t know.”
The Pharisee mob argued with the man that used to be blind
13 The people took the man that was born blind to the Pharisee mob, that were strong for the Jewish law.
14 That day was the Jewish rest day, so nobody was allowed to work on that day, but Jesus made mud on that day, and he put it on the blind man’s eyes, to make them better.
15 The Pharisee mob asked the man, “How come you can see?”
He said, “A man put mud on my eyes, and told me to go and wash them. So I did that, and straight away I could see.”
16 Some of that Pharisee mob said, “That man did not come from God. He does not respect God’s law about the rest day.”
But some of them said, “But he does powerful things. A bad man can’t do things like that. So we reckon God sent him here.” And so that Pharisee mob did not agree with each other about Jesus.
17 Then they asked the man, “What do you say about the man that made your eyes better?”
The man said, “I think God sent him here to tell people God’s messages.”
18 But the Jewish leaders did not believe that the man was really born blind, and that now he can see, so they sent somebody to get his parents.
19 Then they asked them, “Is this man your son? Was he born blind? Tell us, how come he can see now?”
20-23 Before this time, the Jewish leaders agreed to punish anyone that followed Jesus. They said, “If anybody says that Jesus is the Christ, the special man that God promised to send, we will not let them come to our meeting houses and pray to God with us.” So the man’s parents were frightened, and they said, “We know he is our son, and we know that he was born blind. But we don’t know how his eyes are better, or who made them better. You can ask him. He is old enough to talk for himself. He is not a little boy.”
24 Then the Jewish leaders called the man that was born blind, and they got him to come to them again. They said to him, “We know that the man that made you see goes against God, and he does bad things. So now, show respect to God and tell us straight, what do you say about this man?”
25 The man said, “I don’t know anything about this man. I don’t know if he goes against God and does wrong things. All I know is this, I was blind, but now I can see.”
26 So the Jewish leaders said, “What did he do to you? How did he make you see?”
27 The man said, “I told you already, but you didn’t listen to me. Why do you want to hear my story again? Do you want to be his followers too?”
28 The Jewish leaders got angry with the man and said, “You are his follower, not us. We follow Moses. 29 We know that Moses talked with God, but we don’t think this man comes from God. We don’t know where he comes from.”
30 The man said, “How can that be? He just made my eyes better. How come you don’t know where he comes from? 31 Everyone knows that God does not listen to people that go against him and do bad things. But he does listen to people that give him the right respect and do what he says. 32 From the time God made everything, nobody has ever heard of anything like this happening to a person that was born blind. Nobody ever made them see. 33 I reckon God sent this man. If he didn’t, this man couldn’t do anything like this.”
34 The Jewish leaders got really angry and said, “Don’t try to teach us. You were born blind, so we know that you always went against God and did bad things. You can’t teach us anything. Get out of this meeting house, and don’t come back.”
The man that used to be blind believed in Jesus
35 Jesus heard that the Jewish leaders told that man to get out of the meeting house. So he went and found the man, and Jesus asked him, “Do you believe in the special man that God sent from heaven?”
36 The man said, “Sir, tell me who he is, so that I can believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have met him, and right now you are talking to him.”
38 Straight away the man said, “Sir, I believe in you.” And he got down on his knees in front of Jesus, to show him respect.
39 Then Jesus said, “I came to the world to judge people, and to split them into 2 mobs. One mob know that they don’t understand the true things about God. It’s like they are blind. But they let me help them understand those things, like I make them see. The other mob think they understand all about God. It’s like they think they can already see, so they don’t let me help them. But they don’t really understand, so it’s like they stay blind.”
40 Some of the Pharisee mob there heard him say that, and they got angry, and they said, “Are you saying that we are that blind mob?”
41 Jesus said, “If you knew you were blind, you would let me help you, and then God would say that you are not guilty for the bad things you did. But you say you can see, and you don’t let me help you, so you are still guilty.”

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*9:4-5 Matthew 5:14; John 8:12

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