A behavior model for the receiver of the Ethernet passive optical network(EPON) is presented. The model consists of a fiber, a photodetector, a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) followed by a limiting amplifier and a clock and data recovery' circuit (CDR). Each sub-model is constructed based on the architecture of a circuit. The noise and jitter in each block such as shot noise, thermal noise, deterministic and random jitter are also considered. The performance of the whole receiver can be evaluated by the simulation of the behavior model, which is faster than the ordinary circuit model and more accurate than the analytical model. The whole model is implemented with C ++ and simulated in Microsoft Visual C ++ 6. 0. Using the Monte Carlo method, the EPON receiver is simulated. The simulation results show a good agreement with experimental ones.