John 3:1–4:54
3 There was a man from the Phariseesl named Nicodemus,m a rulern of the Jews. 2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi,o we know that you are a teacherp who has come from God,q for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”r
3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again,* s he cannot see the kingdom of God.”t
4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is bornu of water and the Spirit,v he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the fleshw is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spiritx is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be borny again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.z So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”aa
9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
10 “Are you a teacherD of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. 11 “Truly I tell you,ab we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascendedac into heavenad except the one who descended from heavenae—the Son of Man.E,af
14 “Just as Mosesag lifted up the snake in the wilderness,ah so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him mayF have eternal life.ai 16 For God lovedaj the world in this way:G He gaveH his one and onlyak Son,al so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.am 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemnan the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned,ao because he has not believed in the nameap of the one and only Sonaq of God. 19 This is the judgment: The lightar has come into the world,as and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hatesat the light and avoids it,I so that his deedsau may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives byJ the truth comes to the light, so that his worksav may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent time with them and baptized.
23 Johnaw also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized, 24 since John had not yet been thrown into prison.ax
25 Then a dispute arose between John’s disciplesay and a JewK about purification.az 26 So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi,ba the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan,bb is baptizing—and everyone is going to him.”bc
27 John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,bd but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’be 29 He who has the bridea is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatlyA at the groom’s voice. So this joya of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
31 The one who comes from aboveb is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms.B The one who comes from heaven is above all.c 32 He testifiesd to what he has seen and heard, and yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 The one who has accepted his testimony has affirmed that God is true.e 34 For the one whom God sent speaks God’s words, since heC gives the Spiritf without measure. 35 The Father loves the Song and has given all things into his hands.h 36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the SonD will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.i
4 When JesusE learned that the Phariseesj had heard he was makingk and baptizing more disciples than Johnl 2 (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), 3 he left Judeam and went again to Galilee.n 4 He had to travel through Samaria;o 5 so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the propertyF that Jacobp had given his son Joseph.q 6 Jacob’s wellr was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.G
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.s
“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
9 “How is it that you, a Jew,t ask for a drink from me, a Samaritanu woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate withH Samaritans.I
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God,v and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”w
11 “Sir,”x said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob,y are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.z In fact, the water I will give him will become a wellJ,aa of water springing up in him for eternal life.”ab
15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,ac but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”ad
21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.ae 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here,af when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.* Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit,ag and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”ah
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiahai is coming” (who is called Christaj). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”ak
27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”al 30 They left the town and made their way to him.am
31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi,an eat something.”
32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
34 “My food is to do the will of hima who sent meb and to finish his work,”c Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: OpenA your eyes and look at the fields, because they are readyB for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life,d so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’e 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited fromC their labor.”
39 Now many Samaritansf from that town believed in him because of what the woman saidD when she testified,g “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him,h they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said.E 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Saviori of the world.”F
43 After two days he left there for Galilee.j 44 (Jesus himself had testifiedk that a prophet has no honor in his own country.l) 45 Whenm they entered Galilee, the Galileansn welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalemo during the festival.p For they also had gone to the festival.
THE SECOND SIGN: HEALING AN OFFICIAL’S SON
46 He went again to Canaq of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum.r 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judeas into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die.
48 Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders,t you will not believe.”u
49 “Sir,”v the official said to him, “come down before my boy dies.”
50 “Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed whatG Jesus said to him and departed.
51 While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. 52 He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at one in the afternoonH the fever left him,” they answered. 53 The fatherw realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.
54 Now this was also the second signx Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.y