40. My Father wants all those who see the Son and believe in him to have eternal life. He wants me to bring them back to life on the last day.”
41. The Jews began to criticize Jesus for saying, “I am the bread that came from heaven.”
42. They asked, “Isn’t this man Jesus, Joseph’s son? Don’t we know his father and mother? How can he say now, ‘I came from heaven’?”
43. Jesus responded, “Stop criticizing me!
44. People cannot come to me unless the Father who sent me brings them to me. I will bring these people back to life on the last day.
45. The prophets wrote, ‘God will teach everyone.’ Those who do what they have learned from the Father come to me.
46. I’m saying that no one has seen the Father. Only the one who is from God has seen the Father.
47. I can guarantee this truth: Every believer has eternal life.
48. “I am the bread of life.
49. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died.
50. This is the bread that comes from heaven so that whoever eats it won’t die.
51. I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. The bread I will give to bring life to the world is my flesh.”
52. The Jews began to quarrel with each other. They said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53. Jesus told them, “I can guarantee this truth: If you don’t eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have the source of life in you.
54. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will bring them back to life on the last day.
55. My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them.
57. The Father who has life sent me, and I live because of the Father. So those who feed on me will live because of me.
58. This is the bread that came from heaven. It is not like the bread your ancestors ate. They eventually died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”
59. Jesus said this while he was teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum.