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The Gospel of John 3

3 Now there was a man named Nicodemus. He was a member of a strict Jewish religious group called the Pharisees. He was a member of the highest Jewish governing council. 2 He visited Jesus at night. He said to Jesus, “Teacher, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. We know this because no one can do these miracles you are doing unless God is helping him.” 3 Jesus replied to Nicodemus and said, “I am telling you the truth: No one can enter where God rules without being born a second time.” 4 Then Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person be born again when he is old? No one can enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time!” 5 Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can enter where God rules unless he is born again by water and the Spirit. 6 If a human being gives birth to a person, that person is a human being. But those who are born again by the work of God’s Spirit have a new spiritual nature that God makes within them. 7 Do not be astonished because I told you that you must be born again. 8 The Holy Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to blow. Although you can hear the sound of the wind, you do not know where the wind came from or where it is going. Just as you do not understand these things, so also you do not understand everyone who is born again by the work of God’s Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus answered him, “How is this possible?” 10 Jesus answered him, “You are an important religious teacher among the people of Israel, so you should understand what I am saying! 11 I am telling you the truth: my disciples and I say the things that we know are true, and we are telling you the things that we have witnessed. Yet you people to whom we say these things reject what we are saying. 12 Since you people do not trust what I say when I tell you about things that happen on this earth, you certainly will not trust what I say when I tell you about things that happen in heaven! 13 I, the Son of Man, am the only one who has gone up to heaven, and I am the only one who has come down to earth from heaven. 14 Long ago, when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, Moses lifted up a bronze model of a poisonous snake on a pole, and all who looked up at it were saved from the snakes. In the same way, people must lift me, the Son of Man, up on a cross. 15 They will lift me up so that whoever looks up and trusts in me will live forever with me in heaven.

16 This is because God loved the world’s people in this way, so that he gave his Unique Son in order that anyone who trusts in his Son would not die but would live forever. 17 This is true because God did not send me, his Son, into the world in order to declare the world’s people guilty. Rather, God sent me in order to save the world’s people by me. 18 God does not declare guilty anyone who trusts in his Son. But God has already declared guilty everyone who does not trust in his Son, because they did not trust in the name of the Unique Son of God. 19 Now God’s judicial ruling is as follows: the one who is the light entered the world, but people loved evil instead of him, because they do evil deeds. 20 They love the darkness because every person who continually does evil deeds hates the one who is the light and will never come to him. They avoid the light so that the light might not reveal what they do. 21 But the person who continually does true deeds comes to the one who is the light so that the light might show everyone what he does and so that everyone might know that God was helping him do these deeds.”

22 After those things happened, Jesus and his disciples entered the region of Judea. He stayed there for a while with his disciples and baptized many people.

23 John the Baptizer was also baptizing people near the town of Aenon, which is near the town of Salim in the region of Samaria. He was baptizing people there because there was much water in that place, and people kept coming to John to be baptized. 24 John could do this because John’s enemies had not yet put him in prison. 25 Then some of John’s disciples started arguing with a Jewish man about Jewish religious cleansing laws. 26 Those who were arguing came to John and said, “Teacher, there was a man who was with you when you were baptizing people on the other side of the Jordan River. You had testified about who he was. Look! Now he is baptizing people, and many people are going out to him!” 27 John answered, “Nobody can receive anything unless God gives it to him. 28 You are surely witnesses to me saying that I am not the Messiah, but I am the one whom God has sent before the Messiah. 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. I am like the friend of the bridegroom. I stand and listen to him and am very happy because I hear the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, because the bride is going to the bridegroom, I am extremely joyful. 30 Jesus, the bridegroom, must become more influential, and I, the bridegroom’s friend, must become less influential.

31 Jesus comes from heaven, and he is greater than everyone and everything. Those like myself who are from the earth can only speak with the limited perspective of someone from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is greater than everyone and everything on the earth. 32 Jesus tells people about the things he has seen and heard in heaven, but very few people accept what he says. 33 However, whoever believes what Jesus says has verified that God is truthful. 34 This is because this Jesus whom God has sent says God’s words. We know he says God’s words because God surely gives his Spirit to him without limit. 35 God the Father loves the Son and has given him authority over everything. 36 Whoever trusts in God’s Son will live forever with him in heaven. Whoever does not obey the Son of God will never have eternal life. Rather, God will continually be furious with him.”

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