John 3–4

Jesus and Nicodemus

3There was a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. ²One night he went to Jesus and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.” ³Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”^d

⁴“How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time!” ⁵“I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus. “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. ⁶A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. ⁷Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.^{e 8}The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹“How can this be?” asked Nicodemus.

¹⁰Jesus answered, “You are a great teacher in Israel, and you don’t know this? ¹¹I am telling you the truth: we speak of what we know and report what we have seen, yet none of you is willing to accept our message. ¹²You do not believe me when I tell you about the things of this world; how will you ever believe me, then, when I tell you about the things of heaven? ¹³And no one has ever gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.”^f

^14*As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its saviour.

¹⁸Those who believe in the Son are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged, because they have not believed in God’s only Son. ¹⁹This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. ²⁰All those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.

Jesus and John

²²After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the province of Judea, where he spent some time with them and baptized. ²³John also was baptizing in Aenon, not far from Salim, because there was plenty of water in that place. People were going to him, and he was baptizing them. ^24*(This was before John had been put in prison.)

²⁵Some of John’s disciples began arguing with a Jew^g about the matter of ritual washing. ²⁶So they went to John and said, “Teacher, you remember the man who was with you on the east side of the Jordan, the one you spoke about? Well, he is baptizing now, and everyone is going to him!”

²⁷John answered, “No one can have anything unless God gives it to him. ^28*You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹The bridegroom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the bridegroom’s friend, who stands by and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This is how my own happiness is made complete. ³⁰He must become more important while I become less important.”

He Who Comes from Heaven

³¹He who comes from above is greater than all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly matters, but he who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He tells what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his message. ³³But whoever accepts his message confirms by this that God is truthful. ³⁴The one whom God has sent speaks God’s words, because God gives him the fullness of his Spirit. ^35*The Father loves his Son and has put everything in his power. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have life, but will remain under God’s punishment.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John. ²(Actually, Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; only his disciples did.) ³So when Jesus heard what was being said, he left Judea and went back to Galilee; ⁴on his way there he had to go through Samaria.

^5*In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” ⁸(His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)

^9*The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?” (Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)^h

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If only you knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman said, “you haven’t got a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? ¹²It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his sons and his flocks all drank from it. You don’t claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?”

¹³Jesus answered, “All those who drink this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.”

¹⁵“Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.” ¹⁶“Go and call your husband,” Jesus told her, “and come back.”

¹⁷“I haven’t got a husband,” she answered.

Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you haven’t got a husband. ¹⁸You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.”

¹⁹“I see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. ²⁰“My Samaritan ancestors worshipped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.”

²¹Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. ²³But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God’s Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants. ²⁴God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.”

²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

²⁶Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”

²⁷At that moment Jesus’ disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or asked him, “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, ²⁹“Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” ³⁰So they left the town and went to Jesus.

³¹In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to eat!”

³²But he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³So the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him food?”

³⁴“My food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do. ³⁵You have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields; the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! ³⁶The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so another who sows and the one who reaps will be glad together. ³⁷The saying is true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ ³⁸I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you profit from their work.”

³⁹Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days.

⁴¹Many more believed because of his message, ⁴²and they said to the woman, “We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.”

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

⁴³After spending two days there, Jesus left and went to Galilee. ^44*For he himself had said, “A prophet is not respected in his own country.” ^45*When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything that he had done during the festival.

^46*Then Jesus went back to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. A government official was there whose son was ill in Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to go to Capernaum and heal his son, who was about to die. ⁴⁸Jesus said to him, “None of you will ever believe unless you see miracles and wonders.”

⁴⁹“Sir,” replied the official, “come with me before my child dies.”

⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live!”

The man believed Jesus’ words and went. ⁵¹On his way home his servants met him with the news, “Your boy is going to live!”

⁵²He asked them what time it was when his son got better, and they answered, “It was one o’clock yesterday afternoon when the fever left him.” ⁵³Then the father remembered it was at that very hour that Jesus had told him,…