Bread of Life

John 6 ³⁵ Jesus replied:

I am the bread that gives life! No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who has faith in me will ever be thirsty. ³⁶ I have told you already that you have seen me and still do not have faith in me. ³⁷ Everything and everyone that the Father has given me will come to me, and I won’t turn any of them away.

³⁸ I didn’t come from heaven to do what I want! I came to do what the Father wants me to do. He sent me, ³⁹ and he wants to make certain that none of the ones he has given me will be lost. Instead, he wants me to raise them to life on the last day. ⁴⁰ My Father wants everyone who sees the Son to have faith in him and to have eternal life. Then I will raise them to life on the last day.

⁴¹ The people started grumbling because Jesus had said he was the bread that had come down from heaven. ⁴² They were asking each other, “Isn’t he Jesus, the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his father and mother? How can he say that he has come down from heaven?”

⁴³ Jesus told them:

Stop grumbling! ⁴⁴ No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me makes them want to come. But if they do come, I will raise them to life on the last day. ⁴⁵  One of the prophets wrote, “God will teach all of them.” And so everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him will come to me.

⁴⁶ The only one who has seen the Father is the one who has come from him. No one else has ever seen the Father. ⁴⁷ I tell you for certain that everyone who has faith in me has eternal life.

⁴⁸ I am the bread that gives life! ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, and later they died. ⁵⁰ But the bread from heaven has come down, so that no one who eats it will ever die. ⁵¹ I am that bread from heaven! Everyone who eats it will live forever. My flesh is the life-giving bread I give to the people of this world.

Bread of Life

John 6 ²⁴ They saw that Jesus and his disciples had left. Then they got into the boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus. ²⁵ They found him on the west side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “I tell you for certain that you are not looking for me because you saw the miracles,^[g] but because you ate all the food you wanted. ²⁷  Don’t work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give you this food, because God the Father has given him the right to do so.”

²⁸ “What exactly does God want us to do?” the people asked.

²⁹ Jesus answered, “God wants you to have faith in the one he sent.”

³⁰ They replied, “What miracle will you work, so that we can have faith in you? What will you do? ³¹  For example, when our ancestors were in the desert, they were given manna to eat. It happened just as the Scriptures say, ‘God gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

³² Jesus then told them, “I tell you for certain that Moses wasn’t the one who gave you bread from heaven. My Father is the one who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ And the bread that God gives is the one who came down from heaven to give life to the world.”

³⁴ The people said, “Sir, give us this bread and don’t ever stop!”

³⁵ Jesus replied:

I am the bread that gives life! No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who has faith in me will ever be thirsty.

People flock to Jesus

Mark 6 Jesus crossed Lake Galilee, which was also known as Lake Tiberias. ² A large crowd had seen him work miracles to heal the sick, and those people went with him. ^3-4 It was almost time for the Jewish festival of Passover, and Jesus went up on a mountain with his disciples and sat down.

⁵ When Jesus saw the large crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, “Where will we get enough food to feed all these people?” ⁶ He said this to test Philip, since he already knew what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip answered, “Don’t you know that it would take almost a year’s wages just to buy only a little bread for each of these people?”

⁸ Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the disciples. He spoke up and said, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five small loaves of barley bread and two fish. But what good is that with all these people?”

¹⁰ The ground was covered with grass, and Jesus told his disciples to tell everyone to sit down. About 5,000 men were in the crowd. ¹¹ Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave thanks to God. Then he passed the bread to the people, and he did the same with the fish, until everyone had plenty to eat.

¹² The people ate all they wanted, and Jesus told his disciples to gather up the leftovers, so that nothing would be wasted. ¹³ The disciples gathered them up and filled twelve large baskets with what was left over from the five barley loaves.

¹⁴ After the people had seen Jesus work this miracle, they began saying, “This must be the Prophet who is to come into the world!” ¹⁵ Jesus realized that they would try to force him to be their king. So he went up on a mountain, where he could be alone.

¹⁶ That evening, Jesus’ disciples went down to the lake. ¹⁷ They got into a boat and started across for Capernaum. Later that evening Jesus had still not come to them, ¹⁸ and a strong wind was making the water rough.

¹⁹ When the disciples had rowed for five or six kilometers, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He kept coming closer to the boat, and they were terrified. ²⁰ But he said, “I am Jesus!^[f] Don’t be afraid!” ²¹ The disciples wanted to take him into the boat, but suddenly the boat reached the shore where they were headed.