The rulers, growing more and more exasperated by this plainness of speech, replied, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”
Jesus answered, “I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and ye do dishonor me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”
His opponents replied, “Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead. Whom makest thou thyself?”
Jesus answered, “If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my Father that honoreth me, of whom ye say that he is your God. Yet ye have not known him. But I know him; and, if I should say I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.”
Then said the Jews, “Thou art not yet fifty years old; and hast thou seen Abraham?”
Jesus replied, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
The exasperation of his foes now exceeded all bounds, and they began to pick up stones to stone him; but Jesus, exercising that marvellous power by which he had before extricated himself from the violence of his enemies, quietly retired from the temple, passing through the midst of them.
Entering the streets of the city, he met a man blind from his birth. His disciples asked the question which has been re-echoed by all thoughtful minds from that day to this: “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus replied, that his calamity was not to be attributed to any particular sin of himself or his parents. “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
He then anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay moistened with spittle, and directed him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. He did so, and his sight was restored. It was the sabbath day. The Pharisees, enraged, said, “This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day.” Others, however, replied, “How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?” And thus all Jerusalem was agitated by diversity of opinion. The rulers, in their madness, had passed a decree, that, if any one should confess that he believed that Christ was the Messiah, he should be put out of the synagogue; that is, he should be exposed to the terrible doom of excommunication, which was attended with awful maledictions, exclusion from all intercourse with society, and which prohibited every one from ministering in any way whatever to his wants.