1 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind since the day he was born. 2 “Rabbi,” his disciples said to him, “was it because of his own sin or that of his parents that this man was born blind?”

3 “This happened not because of his own sin or that of his parents,” replied Jesus, “but because God plans to display his powerful deeds through his dealings with this man. 4 We must do the work of the one who sent me while there is still daylight. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 These things having said, Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva and smeared the mud on the blind man’s eyes 7 and said to him, “Go and wash them in the pool of Siloam.” (Siloam means “Sent.”) So the man went and washed his eyes and came back able to see!

8 The man’s neighbors and others who were accustomed to seeing him sit as a beggar, therefore, began saying, “ This is the man who used to sit and beg, isn’t it? It has to be!” 9 Some were saying, “It’s him!” Others were saying, “No, he only looks like him.” The man himself kept insisting, “It’s me!”

10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked him.

11 “The man called Jesus,” he replied, “made some mud and smeared it on my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash them.’ So I went, and when I washed my eyes, I could see.”

12 “Where is that man?” they asked him.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

13 They brought him to the Pharisees—the man who had been blind. 14 (Now the day on which Jesus made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.) 15 So the Pharisees also asked the man, just as the other people had, how he had received his sight. “He put some mud on my eyes,” he told them, “and then I washed them. And now I can see.”

16 At this, some of the Pharisees began to say, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t observe the Sabbath!” Others were saying, “How could a sinful man possibly do miraculous signs so remarkable as these?” And so they were sharply divided.

17 So finally they spoke to the blind man again: “What do you yourself have to say about him? It was, after all, your eyes that he opened.”

“A prophet,” the man replied. “That’s what he is.”

18 So the Jewish authorities refused to believe that the man had really been blind and had received his sight, until they summoned his parents. 19 “Is this ᵖyour son, whom you say was born blind?” they asked them. “How is it, then, that he can now see?”

20 “We know that this man is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents replied. 21 “But as for how he is now able to see, we don’t know, nor do we know who it was that opened his eyes. He is the one ᵖyou should ask. He is certainly old enough, and he can answer for himself.” 22 (These things his parents said because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, who had already agreed that if someone should acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, he would from the synagogue be expelled. 23 That is the reason why his parents said, “He is certainly old enough. He is the one ᵖyou should ask.”)

24 So they had the man who had been blind come back in, and said to him, “We put you under oath before God to tell the truth. We know that this man is a sinner!”

25 “Whether it is a sinner that he is or not, I don’t know. There is one thing that I do know: Though I was blind, now I can see!”

26 “What did he do to you?” they asked. “How did he open your eyes?”

27 “I’ve told ᵖyou already, but you didn’t listen,” the man answered. “Why do ᵖyou want to hear me say it yet again? Could it be that ᵖyou yourselves also want to become this man’s disciples? Surely not.”

28 Then they heaped insults on him. “You are a disciple,” they said, “of that fellow! We are disciples, however, of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

30 “Now how astonishing is that!” the man replied. “ᵖYou don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God pays no attention to the prayers of sinners; it is the person who fears God, rather, and who does his will, whose prayers he answers. 32 Never before has anyone heard of someone opening the eyes of a man born blind! 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

34 “You were born full of sin!” they responded. “And yet you are trying to teach us?” So they threw him out.

35 Jesus heard about what had happened, and when he had found the man, he asked him, “Do you have faith in the Son of Man?”

36 “Who is he, sir?” the man replied. “Please tell me, so that I can put my faith in him.”

37 “You’ve already seen him,” replied Jesus. “In fact, he is the very one who is speaking with you now.”

38 “I do have faith, Lord!” the man said. And he fell to his knees and worshiped Jesus.

39 “It is for judgment that I have come into this world,” said Jesus, “so that those who cannot see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.”

40 Some of the Pharisees overheard these things—those who were nearby—and said to him, “Surely we ourselves aren’t blind, too, are we?”

41 “If ᵖyou were blind, you would not be guilty of sin,” replied Jesus. “But since ᵖyou say, ‘We can see,’ ᵖyour guilt remains.”