The Life of Jesus

He was a lamp burning and shining, and for a little while you were willing to bask in his light.

“But I have a testimony that is greater than Yochanan’s. For the things the Father has given me to do, the very things I am doing now, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.

“In addition, the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice or seen his shape;

moreover, his word does not stay in you, because you don’t trust the one he sent.

You keep examining the Tanakh because you think that in it you have eternal life. Those very Scriptures bear witness to me,

but you won’t come to me in order to have life!

“I don’t collect praise from men,

but I do know you people — I know that you have no love for God in you!

I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t accept me; if someone else comes in his own name, him you will accept.

How can you trust? You’re busy collecting praise from each other, instead of seeking praise from God only.

“But don’t think that it is I who will be your accuser before the Father. Do you know who will accuse you? Moshe, the very one you have counted on!

For if you really believed Moshe, you would believe me; because it was about me that he wrote.

But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

Some time later, Yeshua went over to the far side of Lake Kinneret (that is, Lake Tiberias),

and a large crowd followed him, because they had seen the miracles he had performed on the sick.

Yeshua went up into the hills and sat down there with his talmidim.

Now the Judean festival of Pesach was coming up;

so when Yeshua looked up and saw that a large crowd was approaching, he said to Philip, “Where will we be able to buy bread, so that these people can eat?”

(Now Yeshua said this to test Philip, for Yeshua himself knew what he was about to do.)

Philip answered, “Half a year’s wages wouldn’t buy enough bread for them — each one would get only a bite!”

One of the talmidim, Andrew the brother of Shim‘on Kefa, said to him,

“There’s a young fellow here who has five loaves of barley bread and two fish. But how far will they go among so many?”

Yeshua said, “Have the people sit down.” There was a lot of grass there, so they sat down. The number of men was about five thousand.

Then Yeshua took the loaves of bread, and, after making a b’rakhah, gave to all who were sitting there, and likewise with the fish, as much as they wanted.

After they had eaten their fill, he told his talmidim, “Gather the leftover pieces, so that nothing gets wasted.”