John 1:20–21:25

²⁰John spoke freely and did not refuse to answer. He said, “I am not the Christ.”

²¹So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” ⁿ

He answered, “No, I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?” ⁿ they asked.

He answered, “No.”

²²Then they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to tell those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

²³John told them in the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“I am the voice of one

calling out in the desert:

‘Make the road straight for the Lord.’ ”

²⁴Some Pharisees who had been sent asked John: ²⁵“If you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet, why do you baptize people?”

²⁶John answered, “I baptize with water, but there is one here with you that you don’t know about. ²⁷He is the One who comes after me. I am not good enough to untie the strings of his sandals.”

²⁸This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing people.

²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him. John said, “Look, the Lamb of God, ⁿ who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is the One I was talking about when I said, ‘A man will come after me, but he is greater than I am, because he was living before me.’ ³¹Even I did not know who he was, although I came baptizing with water so that the people of Israel would know who he is.”

^32–33Then John said, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven in the form of a dove and rest on him. Until then I did not know who the Christ was. But the God who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘You will see the Spirit come down and rest on a man; he is the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴I have seen this happen, and I tell you the truth: This man is the Son of God.” ⁿ

The First Followers of Jesus

³⁵The next day John ⁿ was there again with two of his followers. ³⁶When he saw Jesus walking by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” ⁿ

³⁷The two followers heard John say this, so they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following him, he asked, “What are you looking for?”

They said, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (“Rabbi” means “Teacher.”)

³⁹He answered, “Come and see.” So the two men went with Jesus and saw where he was staying and stayed there with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

⁴⁰One of the two men who followed Jesus after they heard John speak about him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and say to him, “We have found the Messiah.” (“Messiah” means “Christ.”)

⁴²Then Andrew took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas.” (“Cephas” means “Peter.” ⁿ)

⁴³The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, where Andrew and Peter lived. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the man that Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about him. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

⁴⁶But Nathanael said to Philip, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Philip answered, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷As Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said, “Here is truly an Israelite. There is nothing false in him.”

⁴⁸Nathanael asked, “How do you know me?”

Jesus answered, “I saw you when you were under the fig tree, before Philip told you about me.”

⁴⁹Then Nathanael said to Jesus, “Teacher, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”

⁵⁰Jesus said to Nathanael, “Do you believe simply because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that.” ⁵¹And Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and ‘angels of God going up and coming down’ ⁿ on the Son of Man.”

The Wedding at Cana

2Two days later there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ²and Jesus and his followers were also invited to the wedding. ³When all the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴Jesus answered, “Dear woman, why come to me? My time has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”

⁶In that place there were six stone water jars that the Jews used in their washing ceremony. ⁿ Each jar held about twenty or thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled the jars to the top.

⁸Then he said to them, “Now take some out and give it to the master of the feast.”

So they took the water to the master. ⁹When he tasted it, the water had become wine. He did not know where the wine came from, but the servants who had brought the water knew. The master of the wedding called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “People always serve the best wine first. Later, after the guests have been drinking awhile, they serve the cheaper wine. But you have saved the best wine till now.”

¹¹So in Cana of Galilee Jesus did his first miracle. There he showed his glory, and his followers believed in him.

Jesus in the Temple

¹²After this, Jesus went to the town of Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and followers. They stayed there for just a few days. ¹³When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover Feast, Jesus went to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves. He saw others sitting at tables, exchanging different kinds of money. ¹⁵Jesus made a whip out of cords and forced all of them, both the sheep and cattle, to leave the Temple. He turned over the tables and scattered the money of those who were exchanging it. ¹⁶Then he said to those who were selling pigeons, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place for buying and selling!”

¹⁷When this happened, the followers remembered what was written in the Scriptures: “My strong love for your Temple completely controls me.” ⁿ

¹⁸Some of his people said to Jesus, “Show us a miracle to prove you have the right to do these things.”

¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will build it again in three days.”

²⁰They answered, “It took forty-six years to build this Temple! Do you really believe you can build it again in three days?”

²¹(But the temple Jesus meant was his own body. ²²After Jesus was raised from the dead, his followers remembered that Jesus had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and the words Jesus had said.)

²³When Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast, many people believed in him because they saw the miracles he did. ²⁴But Jesus did not believe in them because he knew them all. ²⁵He did not need anyone to tell him about people, because he knew what was in people’s minds.

Nicodemus Comes to Jesus

3There was a man named Nicodemus who was one of the Pharisees and an important Jewish leader. ²One night Nicodemus came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know you are a teacher sent from God, because no one can do the miracles you do unless God is with him.”

³Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot be in God’s kingdom.”

⁴Nicodemus said, “But if a person is already old, how can he be born again? He cannot enter his mother’s womb again. So how can a person be born a second time?”

⁵But Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom. ⁶Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit. ⁷Don’t be surprised when I tell you, ‘You must all be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows where it wants to and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going. It is the same with every person who is born from the Spirit.”

⁹Nicodemus asked, “How can this happen?”

¹⁰Jesus said, “You are an important teacher in Israel, and you don’t understand these things? ¹¹I tell you the truth, we talk about what we know, and we tell about what we have seen, but you don’t accept what we tell you. ¹²I have told you about things here on earth, and you do not believe me. So you will not believe me if I tell you about things of heaven. ¹³The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the One who came down from heaven—the Son of Man. ⁿ

¹⁴“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, ⁿ the Son of Man must also be lifted up. ¹⁵So that everyone who believes can have eternal life in him.

¹⁶“God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. ¹⁷God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹They are judged by this fact: The Light has come into the world, but they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. ²⁰All who do evil hate the light and will not come to the light, because it will show all the evil things they do. ²¹But those who follow the true way come to the light, and it shows that the things they do were done through God.”

Jesus and John the Baptist

²²After this, Jesus and his followers went into the area of Judea, where he stayed with his followers and baptized people. ²³John was also baptizing in Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were going there to be baptized. ²⁴(This was before John was put into prison.)

²⁵Some of John’s followers had an argument with a Jew about religious washing. ^{n 26}So they came to John and said, “Teacher, remember the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you spoke about so much? He is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

²⁷John answered, “A man can get only what God gives him. ²⁸You yourselves heard me say, ‘I am not the Christ, but I am the one sent to prepare the way for him.’ ²⁹The bride belongs only to the bridegroom. But the friend who helps the bridegroom stands by and listens to him. He is thrilled that he gets…