What did Jesus say about Spiritual Blindness?

¹⁹ “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.

²⁰ A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was taken to his gate, full of sores,

²¹ and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

²² The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

²³ In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.

²⁴ He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’

²⁵ “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish.

²⁶ Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’

²⁷ “He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house—

²⁸ for I have five brothers—that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’

²⁹ “But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’

³⁰ “He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

³¹ “He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”

³ “Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:

⁴ how he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

⁵ Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?

⁶ But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

⁷ But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless.

⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

¹⁸ If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

²¹ But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.

²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

²³ He who hates me, hates my Father also.

²⁴ If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.

²⁵ But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’

⁴⁹ “I don’t have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.

⁵⁰ But I don’t seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges.

⁵¹ Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death.”

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⁵⁴ “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God.

⁵⁵ You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word.

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

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⁵⁸ “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.”

⁷ “Give me a drink.”

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¹⁰ “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

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¹³ “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,

¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

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¹⁶ “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’

¹⁸ for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”

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²¹ “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

²² You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.

²³ But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers.

²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

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²⁶ “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”

¹⁶ “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

¹⁷ If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God or if I am speaking from myself.

¹⁸ He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.

¹⁹ Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?”

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²¹ “I did one work and you all marvel because of it.

²² Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy.

²³ If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath?

²⁴ Don’t judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”

²⁰ “Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word,

²¹ that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

²² The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one,

²³ I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me.

²⁴ Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

²⁵ Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.

²⁶ I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

⁴¹ I don’t receive glory from men.

⁴² But I know you, that you don’t have God’s love in yourselves.

⁴³ I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

⁴⁴ How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?

⁴⁵ “Don’t think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, even Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶ For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.

⁴⁷ But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”