²³ For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.

The Hope of Eternal Life

³ All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation,

¹² For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

³ Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,^[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

¹³ They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

⁵³ For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

⁵⁴ Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,^[a] this Scripture will be fulfilled:

⁶³ The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

¹⁸ We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them.

⁹ Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life^[a] is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.

¹⁸ He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.^[a]