⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.^{(A) 6} Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit^[a] gives birth to spirit.^{(B) 7} You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You^[b] must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”^[c](C)

⁵ he saved us,^(A) not because of righteous things we had done,^(B) but because of his mercy.^(C) He saved us through the washing^(D) of rebirth and renewal^(E) by the Holy Spirit,

¹⁶ And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized^(A) and wash your sins away,^(B) calling on his name.’^(C)

¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.^(A)

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood^(A) cannot inherit the kingdom of God,^(B) nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.^(C)

¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God^(A) but considers them foolishness,^(B) and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit^(C) makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

But we have the mind of Christ.^(E)