2. In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethzatha.
3-4. Many sick, blind, lame, and crippled people were lying close to the pool.
5. Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years.
6. When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be healed?”
7. The man answered, “Lord, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first.”
8. Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat and walk!”
9. At once the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.
10. When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, “This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath.”
11. But he replied, “The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk.”