Christ the good Shepherd
10
📚✭“Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 📚✭But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 📚✭To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 📚✭And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 📚And they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers✭”.6 📚✭Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 📚Then Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door✭ for the sheep. 8 📚All whoever came before me✭ are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 📚I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved✭ and go in and out and find pasture. 10 📚The thief✭ does not come except to steal, to kill and to destroy. I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it in great abundance.
11 📚✭“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. 12 📚But the hired✭ man who is not the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. And the wolf✭ catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 📚✭The hired man runs away, because he is a hired man and does not care for the sheep. 14 📚I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and my sheep know me. 15 📚Just as the Father knows me, even so I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 📚✭“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must also bring them. And they will hear my voice, and there will be one fold and one shepherd.✭ 17 📚✭This is why my Father loves me: because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 📚✭No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father”.
19 📚So there was a division again among the Jews because of these statements. 20 📚✭And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to him?” 21 📚✭Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
22 ✭Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 📚And Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s portico.
24 📚✭Then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, “How long will you make us doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly”.
25 📚✭Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you did not believe. The deeds that I do in my Father’s name testify about me. 26 📚✭But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
27 📚✭“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 📚And I give to them eternal life,✭ and they will never perish,✭ neither will anyone snatch them out of my hand.✭ 29 📚✭My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all.✭ And no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 📚✭I and my Father are one”.
Christ again reveals Who He is
31 📚Then again the Jews took up stones to stone him.
32 📚✭Jesus responded to them, “I have shown you many good deeds from my Father. For which of these deeds do you stone me?”
33 📚The Jews answered him, saying, “We do not stone you for a good deed, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God”.
34 📚✭Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods?’ 35 📚If he called those to whom✭ the Word of God came, ‘gods’, and the Scripture cannot be broken, 36 📚✭do you say about him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’, because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’ 37 📚✭If I do not do the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 📚But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him”.
39 📚✭Therefore once more they tried to seize him, but he escaped out of their hand, 40 📚✭and went away again beyond Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and he remained there.