As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned — this man or his parents — that he was born blind?”[1]
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that God’s works might be shown in him. 4 We must do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the spit, and spread the mud on the man’s eyes. 7 Then he said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing.[2]
8 His neighbors and those who had seen him before — because he was a beggar — began asking, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It’s him.” Others said, “No, but he looks like him.” The man himself kept saying, “I’m the one.”
10 So they asked him, “How were your eyes opened?”
11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I could see.”
12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.”
13 They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. 14 Now the day Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath.[3] 15 So the Pharisees also asked him how he had gained his sight. He told them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a sinful man do signs like these?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they spoke to the blind man again: “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had gained his sight until they called in the parents of the man who could now see. 19 They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he see now?”
20 His parents answered, “We know this is our son, and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he sees now, we don’t know. And who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He’s old enough. He can speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. The Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus to be the Anointed One, that person would be thrown out of the synagogue.[4] 23 That is why his parents said, “He’s old enough. Ask him.”
24 So for a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I see.”
26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered them, “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?”
28 They hurled insults at him and said, “You are that man’s disciple. We are disciples of Moses. 29 We know God spoke to Moses, but this man — we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered them, “Now that is remarkable — that you don’t know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. But if anyone is devout and does his will, God listens to that person. 32 Never in all history has anyone heard of a man opening the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins — and you would teach us?” And they threw him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out. He found the man and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”[5]
36 The man answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so I can believe in him.”
37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you right now.”
38 He said, “I believe, Lord.” And he knelt down before Jesus.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment — so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, ‘We see.’ Your sin remains.”
Notes
Note 1. A strand of Jewish thought, drawing on lines like Exodus 20:5, held that the consequences of wrongdoing can pass down through a family. That idea was already contested in Jewish tradition. ↩
Note 2. Siloam sat at the low southeastern end of Jerusalem, fed by water piped from the Gihon spring, and served ritual washing — its waters were carried up to the Temple during the Feast of Tabernacles. A large first-century pool at this spot was uncovered by archaeologists in 2004. John translates the name as “Sent.” ↩
Note 3. John gives this detail after the healing. Making mud by mixing spit with earth fell under the kind of work counted as forbidden on the Sabbath, and healing was restricted to cases of danger to life. ↩
Note 4. Expulsion from the synagogue (Greek aposynagōgos) meant more than losing a place to worship — it cut a person off from the community’s social, economic, and legal life. ↩
Note 5. The phrase echoes Daniel 7, where “one like a son of man” is brought before God and given lasting dominion. In Daniel it is an image — a humanlike figure — rather than a fixed title. ↩