AT THE TIME when Jesus came to Jerusalem, the Feast of Tents was half over. Many had been looking for him, for all through the land he was talked about. At the Feast the people were saying, "Where is he? Has he come up to the Feast?"
Some said, "He is a good man." Others said, "No, he cannot be a good man, for he is leading the people away from the law of Moses." But no one spoke freely about him, for fear of the rulers and the people of Jerusalem whose minds had been set against Jesus by the priests and the scribes or teachers of the law.
From his home in Bethany at Martha's house, Jesus came quietly into the Temple and began teaching the people who gathered there during the Feast, going out at evening to Bethany. All who heard him wondered at his words, and every day the crowds around him grew. People said to each other, "How did this man get all his knowledge? He has never studied in the college of the scribes."
"My teaching," said Jesus in answer, "is not my own; but it comes from Him who sent me. Any one who chooses to do God's will, will know whether I speak in God's name, or whether I am talking in my own name. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you honestly tries to keep the law. If you did try to keep the law, you would not try to kill me!"
The crowd replied to Jesus, "You are crazy! Who is trying to kill you?"
But Jesus knew that he was speaking the truth, for he knew what was in the minds of the rulers and of many in Jerusalem. He said to the crowd:
"I will be with you only a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me, and where I am going, you cannot come."
"Where is this man going," said the Jews, "that we cannot find him? Is he going among our people in foreign lands, to teach the foreigners? What does he mean by words like these?"
Jesus meant that after they should kill him and he should rise from the tomb and live again, he was going back to his home in heaven, a place to which they could never come.
