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John 5 · a question people ask

Jesus told the man, "Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you" (5:14). Did his sin cause his sickness?

In the text

The verse doesn't say. Here it is whole: "Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”" (5:14). It names no sin, and doesn't say what the worse thing would be, and the chapter says nothing about why the man "had been sick for thirty-eight years" (5:5). The words are Jesus's to this one man, after he was made well. These notes don't apply them to anyone else's sickness, and don't say more than the verse does.

The verses

“A certain man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years.”
John 5:5 · World English Bible
“Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.””
John 5:14 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of John 5

John 5: My Father is still working

Asked "Do you want to be made well?", the man at the pool doesn't say yes; he says, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool" (5:6-7). Jesus doesn't put him in: "Arise, take up your mat, and walk" (5:8). And only after he walks does the Gospel say, "Now that day was a Sabbath" (5:9).

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Last reviewed October 1, 2026. Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions