3 After dark one evening, a Jewish leader named Nicodemus who was a member of the Pharisee party 2 went to Yeshua and said, “Teacher, we know that God has sent you as a teacher, because no one could do these kinds of miracles if God wasn’t with him.”

3 Yeshua responded, “I’ll tell you frankly that no one can enter God’s kingdom unless he is reborn.”

4 Nicodemus questioned, “How can an adult be reborn? A person can’t just return to their mother’s womb and then get born a second time!”

5 But Yeshua continued, “Honestly, I’m telling you: unless a person is born from both water and the spirit, they can’t enter God’s kingdom. 6 Someone that’s born from a body is flesh and bone, but someone that’s born from God’s spirit is spiritual. 7 So you shouldn’t be surprised that I told you that everyone needs to be reborn. 8 The wind blows wherever it wants, and you can hear its sound but you can’t actually see where it’s coming from and where it’s going to. So too with everyone who’s born from God’s spirit.”

9 Nicodemus replied, “How can all this even happen?”

10 “You’re a Jewish teacher,” Yeshua answered, “and yet you don’t know all this? 11 It’s true that we just teach what we know, and explain what we’ve seen ourselves, but you people aren’t accepting our testimony. 12 If I tell all of you earthly things and you don’t believe them, how will you ever believe if I explain heavenly things? 13 None of you have gone up into heaven, but I, humanity’s child, have come down from heaven.

14 [ref]“Just like Moses lifted up that bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, it’s also necessary for humanity’s child to be lifted up,[fn] 15 so that everyone who believes in him won’t die, but will live forever.[fn] 16 Because in that same way, God loves the people of the world enough to cause his only son to be born and to give him to the world, so that everyone who believes this will not die, but will go on to live forever.

17 “God didn’t send his son here to condemn people, but rather to save them. 18 Anyone who trusts in me will not be condemned. However, anyone who doesn’t believe this has already been condemned because he rejected the authority of the only son that God fathered. 19 And this is the verdict: that light has come into the world, but some people love the darkness more than the light because they do evil things, 20 because everyone who does evil things hates the light and doesn’t come to the light so that their actions won’t be exposed. 21 But anyone who does what is right, comes toward the light so that their actions can be revealed as being done with God’s help.”