John 3:1–21

A Meeting with Nicodemus

3Now there was a man of the Pharisees whose name was^a Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ²This man came to him at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are^* a teacher who has come from God, for no one is able to perform these signs that you are performing unless God were with him.” ³Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born from above,^b he is not able to see the kingdom of God.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is an old man? He is not able to enter into his mother’s womb for the second time and be born, can he?”^*

⁵Jesus answered, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born of water and spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘It is necessary for you to be born from above.’^{c 8}The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? ¹¹Truly, truly I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony! ¹²If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,^d thus it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”^e

God’s Love for the World

¹⁶For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world in order that he should judge^f the world, but in order that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸The one who believes in him is not judged,^g but the one who does not believe has already been judged,^h because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed. ²¹But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, in order that his deeds may be revealed, that they are done in God.