In those days, on the occasion of a Jewish feast, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Pool there is a place with the Hebrew name Bethesda. Its five portics were crowded with sick people lying there blind, lame or disabled waiting for the movement of the waters. There was one man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus, who knew he had been sick a long time, said when he saw him lying there, "Do you want to be healed?" "Sir," the sick man answered, "I do not have anyone to plunge me into the pool once the water has been stirred up. By the time I get there, someone else has gone in ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk!" The man was immediately cured; he picked up his mat and began to walk.
The day was a sabbath. Consequently, some of the Jews began telling the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath, and you are not allowed to carry that mat around." He explained: "It was the man who cured me who told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" "This person who told you to pick up and walk," they asked, "who is he?" The man who had been restored to health had no idea who it was. The crowd in that place was so great that Jesus had been able to slip away. Later on, Jesus found him in the temple precincts and said to him: "Remember, now, you have been cured. Give up your sins so that something worse may not overtake you." The man went off and informed the Jews that Jesus was the one who had cured him.