Officers Sent To Arrest Jesus
When the Pharisees heard the crowd arguing about Jesus, they got together with the chief priests and sent some temple police to arrest him. But Jesus told them, "I will be with you a little while longer, and then I will return to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you won?t find me. You cannot go where I am going."
35 The people asked each other, "Where can he go to keep us from finding him? Is he going to some foreign country where our people live? Is he going there to teach the Greeks? 36 What did he mean by saying that we will look for him, but won?t find him? Why can?t we go where he is going?"
Streams of Life-Giving Water
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted, "If you are thirsty, come to me and drink! 38 Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you, just as the Scriptures say." 39 Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, who would be given to everyone that had faith in him. The Spirit had not yet been given to anyone, since Jesus had not yet been given his full glory.
The People Take Sides
40 When the crowd heard Jesus say this, some of them said, "He must be the Prophet!" 41 Others said, "He is the Messiah!" Others even said, "Can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 The Scriptures say that the Messiah will come from the family of King David. Doesn?t this mean that he will be born in David?s hometown of Bethlehem?" 43 The people started taking sides against each other because of Jesus. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
The Leaders Refuse To Have Faith in Jesus
45 When the temple police returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, they were asked, "Why didn?t you bring Jesus here?"
46 They answered, "No one has ever spoken like that man!"
47 The Pharisees said to them, "Have you also been fooled? 48 Not one of the chief priests or the Pharisees has faith in him. 49 And these people who don?t know the Law are under God?s curse anyway."
50 Nicodemus was there at the time. He was a member of the council, and was the same one who had earlier come to see Jesus. He said, 51 "Our Law doesn?t let us condemn people before we hear what they have to say. We cannot judge them before we know what they have done."
52 Then they said, "Nicodemus, you must be from Galilee! Read the Scriptures, and you will find that no prophet is to come from Galilee."