Chapter 3

¹Among the Pharisees there was a man named Nicodemus, a leader among the Jews. ²This man went to Jesus one night, and said to him,

“Master, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can show the signs that you do, unless God is with him.”

³Jesus answered him,

“I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born over again from above!”

⁴Nicodemus said to him,

“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb over again and be born?”

⁵Jesus answered,

“I tell you, if a man does not owe his birth to water and spirit, he cannot get into the Kingdom of God. ⁶Whatever owes its birth to the physical is physical, and whatever owes its birth to the Spirit is spiritual. ⁷Do not wonder at my telling you that you must be born over again from above. ⁸The wind blows wherever it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. That is the way with everyone who owes his birth to the Spirit.”

⁹Nicodemus said to him,

“How can that be?”

¹⁰Jesus answered,

“Are you the teacher of Israel and yet ignorant of this? ¹¹I tell you, we know what we are talking about and we have seen the things we testify to, yet you all reject our testimony. ¹²If you will not believe the earthly things that I have told you, how can you believe the heavenly things I have to tell? ¹³Yet no one has gone up into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from heaven. ¹⁴And just as Moses in the desert lifted the serpent up in the air, 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 no one who believes in him should be lost, but that they should all have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to pass judgment upon the world, but that through him the world might be saved. ¹⁸No one who believes in him has to come up for judgment. Anyone who does not believe stands condemned already, for not believing in God’s only Son. ¹⁹And the basis of the judgment is this, that the light has come into the world, and yet, because their actions were wicked, men have loved the darkness more than the light. ²⁰For everyone who does wrong hates the light and will not come to it, for fear his actions will be exposed. ²¹But everyone who is living the truth will come to the light, to show that his actions have been performed in dependence upon God.

²²After this Jesus went into the country of Judea with his disciples, and stayed there with them and baptized. ²³John too was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, for there was plenty of water there, and people came there and were baptized. ²⁴For John had not yet been put in prison. ²⁵So a discussion arose between John’s disciples and a man from Judea, about purification. ²⁶And they went to John and said to him,

“Master, the man who was with you across the Jordan, and to whom you yourself gave testimony, is baptizing, and everybody is going to him.”

²⁷John answered,

“A man cannot get anything unless it is given to him from heaven. ²⁸You will bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Christ; I have been sent in advance of him.’ ²⁹It is the bridegroom who has the bride; but the bridegroom’s friend who stands outside and listens for his voice is very glad when he hears the bridegroom speak. So this happiness of mine is now complete. ³⁰He must grow greater and greater, but I less and less.”

³¹He who comes from above is above all others. A son of earth belongs to earth and speaks of earth. He who comes from heaven is above all others. ³²It is to what he has seen and heard that he gives testimony, and yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever does accept it has thereby acknowledged that God is true. ³⁴For he whom God has sent speaks God’s words, for God gives him his Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves his Son, and has put everything in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son possesses eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not experience life, but will remain under the anger of God.