John 3:1-18
1There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
3Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
John 3:3 Or born from above; also in 3:7.
4“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.6Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.7So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’8The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
John 3:5 Or and spirit. The Greek word for Spirit can also be translated wind; see 3:8.
John 3:6 Greek what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:7 The Greek word for you is plural; also in 3:12.
9“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
10Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?11I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony.12But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?13No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven.14And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
John 3:13 Some manuscripts add who lives in heaven. “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.
John 3:15 Or everyone who believes will have eternal life in him.
16“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.17God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16 Or For God loved the world so much that he gave.
18“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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