18
A person making things up tries to make himself look good. But someone trying to honor the one who sent him sticks to the facts and doesn't tamper with reality.
19
It was Moses, wasn't it, who gave you God's Law? But none of you are living it. So why are you trying to kill me?"
20
The crowd said, "You're crazy! Who's trying to kill you? You're demon-possessed."
21
Jesus said, "I did one miraculous thing a few months ago, and you're still standing around getting all upset, wondering what I'm up to.
22
Moses prescribed circumcision - originally it came not from Moses but from his ancestors - and so you circumcise a man, dealing with one part of his body, even if it's the Sabbath.
23
You do this in order to preserve one item in the Law of Moses. So why are you upset with me because I made a man's whole body well on the Sabbath?
24
Don't be nitpickers; use your head - and heart! - to discern what is right, to test what is authentically right."
25
That's when some of the people of Jerusalem said, "Isn't this the one they were out to kill?
26
And here he is out in the open, saying whatever he pleases, and no one is stopping him. Could it be that the rulers know that he is, in fact, the Messiah?
27
And yet we know where this man came from. The Messiah is going to come out of nowhere. Nobody is going to know where he comes from."
28
That provoked Jesus, who was teaching in the Temple, to cry out, "Yes, you think you know me and where I'm from, but that's not where I'm from. I didn't set myself up in business. My true origin is in the One who sent me, and you don't know him at all.