Jesus Feeds a Great Crowd
1After this, Jesus went across Lake Galilee (or, Lake Tiberias, as it is also called). 2A large crowd followed him, because they had seen his miracles of healing those who were ill. 3Jesus went up a hill and sat down with his disciples. 4The time for the Passover Festival was near. 5Jesus looked round and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, so he asked Philip, “Where can we buy enough food to feed all these people?” 6(He said this to test Philip; actually he already knew what he would do.)
7Philip answered, “For everyone to have even a little, it would take more than 200 silver coins to buy enough bread.”
8Another of his disciples, Andrew, who was Simon Peter's brother, said, 9“There is a boy here who has five loaves of barley bread and two fish. But they will certainly not be enough for all these people.”
10“Make the people sit down,” Jesus told them. (There was a lot of grass there.) So all the people sat down; there were about 5,000 men. 11Jesus took the bread, gave thanks to God, and distributed it to the people who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, and they all had as much as they wanted. 12When they were all full, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces left over; let us not waste any.” 13So they gathered them all up and filled twelve baskets with the pieces left over from the five barley loaves which the people had eaten.
14Seeing this miracle that Jesus had performed, the people there said, “Surely this is the Prophet who was to come into the world!” 15Jesus knew that they were about to come and seize him in order to make him king by force; so he went off again to the hills by himself.
Jesus Walks on the Water
16When evening came, Jesus' disciples went down to the lake, 17got into a boat, and went back across the lake towards Capernaum. Night came on, and Jesus still had not come to them. 18By then a strong wind was blowing and stirring up the water. 19The disciples had rowed about five or six kilometres when they saw Jesus walking on the water, coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20“Don't be afraid,” Jesus told them, “it is I!” 21Then they willingly took him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached land at the place they were heading for.