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The Holy Land in a week · Stop 3 · Day 1
Pool of Bethesda and St Anne's
In the Bible
By the Sheep Gate was a pool with five colonnades called Bethesda, where the sick lay. Jesus told an invalid there to pick up his mat and walk, and he was made well.
John 5:2–3
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Hebrew is called Bethesda. On these walkways lay a great number of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed.John 5:8–9
Then Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man was made well, and he picked up his mat and began to walk. Now this happened on the Sabbath day,Tradition
By tradition, the house of Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, stood beside the pool, and the Crusaders built St Anne's church in their memory.
Here today
A 12th-century Crusader church with famous acoustics, and beside it the excavated pools with ruins of Byzantine and Crusader churches.
Through the eyes of old pilgrims
… further in the city are twin pools (piscinae gemellares), with five porticoes, which are called Bethsaida. There persons who have been sick for many years are cured; the pools contain water which is red when it is disturbed.The Bordeaux Pilgrim, 333
Before you travel, check your country’s travel advice. Opening hours and the rules of the sites change — see their official pages.
Land outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).