The Pool of Bethesda

‘Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had’ (John 5.2–4).

Most of the modern versions either omit or place in brackets the last few words of verse 3 and the whole of verse 4, and it is often asserted that these words are of doubtful authority or that they are spurious. However, the evidence makes it quite clear that in the majority of the copies and versions over a wide area retained the disputed words as an authentic part of the inspired text.

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