John 10

1“Truly, truly I tell you, the one who does not go into the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in somewhere else is a thief and a bandit.

2The one who comes in through the gate, though, is the shepherd of the sheep.

3The gatekeeper opens the way for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and brings them out.

4Once he has put all his own outside, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, since they know his voice.

5They will by no means follow a stranger; instead they will run from him, because they do not know strangers’ voices.”

6Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not grasp what he was telling them.

7So Jesus said once more, “Truly, truly I tell you, I am the gate of the sheep.

8Everyone who came before me is a thief and a bandit, but the sheep did not listen to them.

9I am the gate. Whoever enters by way of me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.

10The thief comes for nothing but to steal, to slaughter, and to destroy. I came so that they might have life, and have an abundance of it.

11I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

12The hired man, who is not a shepherd and to whom the sheep do not belong, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and runs off; then the wolf seizes them and scatters them.

13This is because he works for wages and the sheep do not matter to him.

14I am the good shepherd; I know those who are mine, and those who are mine know me,

15in the same way that the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

16I also have other sheep, not from this fold. Those too I must lead, and they will listen to my voice; then there will be one flock, one shepherd.

17The Father loves me for this reason: I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

18No one takes it away from me; I lay it down on my own initiative. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. I received this command from my Father.”

19These words caused the Jews to be divided once again.

20Many of them kept saying, “He has a demon and is raving. Why are you listening to him?”

21Others were saying, “A man with a demon does not talk like this. Is a demon able to open blind people’s eyes?”

22The Festival of Dedication was then taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter,

23and Jesus was walking about in the temple area, in Solomon’s Colonnade.

24The Jews then surrounded him and kept saying to him, “How long are you going to hold us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us openly.”

25Jesus answered them, “I have told you, yet you do not believe. The works I am doing in my Father’s name—these testify about me.

26Still you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.

27The sheep that are mine listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

28I give them eternal life. They will certainly never perish, and nobody will snatch them from my hand.

29What my Father has given me is greater than everything, and nobody can snatch them from the Father’s hand.

30The Father and I are one.”

31Once more the Jews took up stones to stone him.

32Jesus responded to them, “Many good works from the Father I have shown you. For which work among them are you stoning me?”

33The Jews answered him, “It is not over a good work that we are stoning you, but over blasphemy—because you, though only a man, are making yourself God.”

34Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’?

35If he called them gods, the people to whom God’s word came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—

36are you saying to the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

37If I am not doing my Father’s works, do not believe me.

38But if I am doing them, then even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may come to know and continue to know that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

39So they were trying again to seize him, but he got away out of their hands.

40He went off once more to the far side of the Jordan, to the place where John had first been baptizing, and he stayed there.

41Many people came to him, and they kept saying, “John did not perform a single sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”

42And there many came to believe in him.