Chapter 9

   As He passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from his birth.  

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   So His disciples asked Him, 'Rabbi, who sinned--this man or his parents--that he was born blind?'  

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   'Neither he nor his parents sinned,' answered Jesus, 'but he was born blind in order that God's mercy might be openly shown in him.  

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   We must do the works of Him who sent me while there is daylight. Night is coming on, when no one can work.  

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   When I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.'  

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   After thus speaking, He spat on the ground, and then, kneading the dust and spittle into clay, He smeared the clay over the man's eyes and said to him,  

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   'Go and wash in the pool of Siloam' --the name means 'Sent.' So he went and washed his eyes, and returned able to see.  

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   His neighbours, therefore, and the other people to whom he had been a familiar object because he was a beggar, began asking, 'Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?'  

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   'Yes it is,' replied some of them. 'No it is not,' said others, 'but he is like him.' His own statement was, 'I am the man.'  

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   'How then were your eyes opened?' they asked.  

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   'He whose name is Jesus,' he answered, 'made clay and smeared my eyes with it, and then told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and obtained sight.'  

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   'Where is he?' they inquired, but the man did not know.  

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   They brought him to the Pharisees--the man who had been blind.  

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   Now the day on which Jesus made the clay and opened the man's eyes was the Sabbath.  

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   So the Pharisees renewed their questioning as to how he had obtained his sight. 'He put clay on my eyes,' he replied, 'and I washed, and now I can see.'  

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   This led some of the Pharisees to say, 'That man has not come from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.' 'How is it possible for a bad man to do such miracles?' argued others.  

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   And there was a division among them. So again they asked the once blind man, 'What is your account of him? --for he opened your eyes.' 'He is a Prophet,' he replied.  

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   The Jews, however, did not believe the statement concerning him--that he had been blind and had obtained his sight--until they called his parents and asked them,  

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   'Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How is it then that he can now see?'  

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   'We know,' replied the parents, 'that this is our son and that he was born blind;  

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   but how it is that he can now see or who has opened his eyes we do not know. Ask him himself; he is of full age; he himself will give his own account of it.'  

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   Such was their answer, because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already settled among themselves that if any one should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, he should be excluded from the synagogue.  

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   That was why his parents said, 'He is of full age: ask him himself.'  

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   A second time therefore they called the man who had been blind, and said, 'Give God the praise: we know that that man is a sinner.'  

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   'Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know,' he replied; 'one thing I know--that I was once blind and that now I can see.'  

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   'What did he do to you?' they asked; 'how did he open your eyes?'  

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   'I have told you already,' he replied, 'and you did not listen to me. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also mean to be disciples of his?'  

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   Then they railed at him, and said, 'You are that man's disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.  

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   We know that God spoke to Moses; but as for this fellow we do not know where he comes from.'  

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   'Why, this is marvellous!' the man replied; 'you do not know where he comes from, and yet he has opened my eyes!  

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   We know that God does not listen to bad people, but that if any one is a God-fearing man and obeys Him, to him He listens.  

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   From the beginning of the world such a thing was never heard of as that any one should open the eyes of a man blind from his birth.  

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   Had that man not come from God, he could have done nothing.'  

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   'You,' they replied, 'were wholly begotten and born in sin, and do *you* teach *us*?' And they put him out of the synagogue.  

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   Jesus heard that they had done this. So having found him, He asked him, 'Do you believe in the Son of God?'  

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   'Who is He, Sir?' replied the man. 'Tell me, so that I may believe in Him.'  

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   'You have seen Him,' said Jesus; 'and not only so: He is now speaking to you.'  

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   'I believe, Sir,' he said. And he threw himself at His feet.  

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   'I came into this world,' said Jesus, 'to judge men, that those who do not see may see, and that those who do see may become blind.'  

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   These words were heard by those of the Pharisees who were present, and they asked Him, 'Are *we* also blind?'  

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   'If you were blind,' answered Jesus, 'you would have no sin; but as a matter of fact you boast that you see. So your sin remains!'  

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