John 3

¹Now there was a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus his name, a ruler of the Jews.

²This one came to him by night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one is able to do these signs that you do unless God is with him.'

³Jesus answered and said to him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.'

⁴Nicodemus said to him, 'How is a man able to be born when he is old? He is not able to enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, is he?'

⁵Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God.'

⁶What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

⁷Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You all must be born from above.'

⁸The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know from where it comes and where it goes; 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 yet you do not know these things?'

¹¹Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you people do not receive our testimony.

¹²If I have told 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 serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

¹⁵so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.

¹⁸The one who believes in him is not condemned; but the one who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

¹⁹And this is the judgment: 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, so that his deeds may not be exposed.

²¹But the one who practices truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done in God.

²²After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the Judean land, and there he was staying with them and baptizing.

²³Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people were coming and being baptized.

²⁴For John had not yet been thrown into prison.

²⁵A dispute therefore arose from John's disciples with a Jew about purification.

²⁶And they came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, the one who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have borne witness — look, he is baptizing, and all are coming to him.'

²⁷John answered and said, 'A man is not able to receive even one thing unless it has been given to him from heaven.'

²⁸You yourselves bear witness to me that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.'

²⁹The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This therefore is my joy, and it has been made full.

³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.

³¹The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is from the earth and speaks from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.

³²And what he has seen and heard, this he testifies to, and no one receives his testimony.

³³The one who has received his testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.

³⁴For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit by measure.

³⁵The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

³⁶The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.