John 2:13-4:42

Tree of Life Version

¹³ The Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Yeshua went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the Temple, He found the merchants selling oxen, sheep, and doves; also the moneychangers sitting there. ¹⁵ Then He made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the Temple, both the sheep and oxen. He dumped out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those selling doves, He said, “Get these things out of here! Stop making My Father’s house a marketplace!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal for your House will consume Me!”^[a]

¹⁸ The Judean leaders responded, “What sign do You show us, since You are doing these things?”

¹⁹ “Destroy this Temple,” Yeshua answered them, “and in three days I will raise it up.”

²⁰ The Judean leaders then said to Him, “Forty-six years this Temple was being built, and You will raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But He was talking about the temple of His body. ²² So after He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He was talking about this. Then they believed the Scripture and the word that Yeshua had spoken.

²³ Now when He was in Jerusalem for the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, seeing the signs He was doing. ²⁴ But Yeshua did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all men. ²⁵ He did not need anyone to testify about man, for He knew what was in man.

A Pharisee Comes Seeking Truth

3 Now there was a man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jewish people. ² He came to Yeshua at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You, a teacher, have come from God. For no one can perform these signs which You do unless God is with Him!”

³ Yeshua answered him, “Amen, amen I tell you, unless one is born from above,^[b] he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus said to Him. “He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?”

⁵ Yeshua answered, “Amen, amen I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit,^[c] he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be surprised that I said to you, ‘You all must be born from above.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

The Father’s Love Revealed

⁹ “How can these things happen?” Nicodemus said.

¹⁰ Yeshua answered him, “You’re a teacher of Israel and you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Amen, amen I tell you, We speak about what We know and testify about what We have seen. Yet you all do not receive Our testimony! ¹² If you do not believe the earthly things I told you, how will you believe when I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has gone up into heaven except the One who came down from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,^[d] so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life!

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸ The one who believes in Him is not condemned; but whoever does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not put his trust in the name of the one and only Ben-Elohim.

¹⁹ “Now this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men loved the darkness instead of the light,^[e] because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. ²¹ But whoever practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be made known that his deeds have been accomplished in God.”

The Living Word, Source of Life

²² Afterwards, Yeshua and His disciples came to the land of Judea. There He was staying with them and immersing. ²³ Now John also was immersing at Aenon near Salim, because much water was there and many were coming and being immersed; ²⁴ for John had not yet been thrown into prison.

²⁵ Now an argument came up between John’s disciples and a Judean concerning purification. ²⁶ They came to John and said, “Rabbi, the One who was with you beyond the Jordan, the One you testified about—look, He is immersing, and all are coming to Him!”

²⁷ John answered, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,’ but rather, ‘I am sent before Him.’ ²⁹ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the best man rejoices when he stands and hears the bridegroom’s voice. So now my joy is complete! ³⁰ He must increase, while I must decrease.”

³¹ The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaks. The One who comes from heaven is above all. ³² And what He has seen and heard, He testifies to that; yet no one receives His testimony. ³³ Whoever receives His testimony has certified that God is true.

³⁴ The One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Ruach without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has given everything into His hand. ³⁶ He who trusts in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Yeshua Offers Living Water

4 Now Yeshua knew that the Pharisees heard that He was making and immersing more disciples than John. ² (Although Yeshua Himself was not immersing, His disciples were.) ³ So He left Judea and went back again to the Galilee.

⁴ But He needed to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So He comes to a Samaritan town called Shechem, near the plot of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ^{[f] 6} Now Jacob’s well was there. So Yeshua, exhausted from the journey, was sitting by the well. It was midday.^[g]

⁷ A Samaritan woman comes to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Yeshua tells her, ⁸ for His disciples had gone away to the town to buy food.

⁹ Then the Samaritan woman tells Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jewish people don’t deal with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Yeshua replied to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “You don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep. Then from where do You get this living water? ¹² You’re not greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us this well. He drank out of it himself, with his sons and his cattle.”

¹³ Yeshua replied to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. ¹⁴ But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty. The water that I give him will become a fountain of water within him, springing up to eternal life!”

¹⁵ “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “give me this water, so I won’t get thirsty or have to come all the way here to draw water!”

¹⁶ He tells her, “Go call your husband, and then come back here.”

¹⁷ “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Yeshua tells her, “You’ve said it right, ‘I have no husband.’ ¹⁸ For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you have now isn’t your husband. This you’ve spoken truthfully!”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “I see that You are a prophet! ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you all say that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ Yeshua tells her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming—it is here now—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people as His worshipers. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman tells Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called the Anointed One.)^[h] When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Yeshua tells her, “I—the One speaking to you—I am.”

Ready for Harvest

²⁷ At this moment, His disciples came back. They were amazed that He was speaking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You want?” or “Why are You speaking with her?”

²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went back to the town. She tells the people, ²⁹ “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did! He couldn’t be the Messiah, could He?” ³⁰ The people left the town and began coming to Him.

³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were pressing Him, “Rabbi, eat!”

³² But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ So the disciples were saying to each other, “No one brought Him food to eat, did they?”

³⁴ Yeshua tells them, “My food is to do the will of the One who sent Me and to accomplish His work. ³⁵ Don’t you say, ‘Four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields! They are white and ready for harvest.

³⁶ “The reaper receives a reward and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have worked hard, and you have joined in their work.”

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town put their trust in Him because of the word of the woman testifying, “He told me everything I ever did!” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Him, they kept asking Him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, ⁴¹ and many more believed because of His word. ⁴² They kept telling the woman, “It’s no longer because of your words that we believe. We’ve heard for ourselves! Now we know that this really is the Savior of the world!”