Jesus and Nicodemus

3 There was a man named Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees. He was an important Jewish leader. ² One night he came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one can do these miraculous signs that you do unless they have God’s help.”

³ Jesus answered, “I assure you, everyone must be born again. Anyone who is not born again cannot be in God’s kingdom.”

⁴ Nicodemus said, “How can a man who is already old be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Believe me when I say that everyone must be born from water and the Spirit. Anyone who is not born from water and the Spirit cannot enter God’s kingdom. ⁶ The only life people get from their human parents is physical. But the new life that the Spirit gives a person is spiritual. ⁷ Don’t be surprised that I told you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it wants to. You hear it, but you don’t know where it is coming from or where it is going. It is the same with everyone who is born from the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus asked, “How is all this possible?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “You are an important teacher of Israel, and you still don’t understand these things? ¹¹ The truth is, we talk about what we know. We tell about what we have seen. But you people don’t accept what we tell you. ¹² I have told you about things here on earth, but you do not believe me. So I’m sure you will not believe me if I tell you about heavenly things! ¹³ The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the one who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.

¹⁴ “Moses lifted up the snake in the desert.^[a] It is the same with the Son of Man. He must be lifted up too. ¹⁵ Then everyone who believes in him can have eternal life.”^[b]

¹⁶ Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life. ¹⁷ God sent his Son into the world. He did not send him to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. But people who do not believe are already judged, because they have not believed in God’s only Son. ¹⁹ They are judged by this fact: The light^[c] has come into the world. But they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light. They will not come to the light, because the light will show all the bad things they have done. ²¹ But anyone who follows the true way comes to the light. Then the light will show that whatever they have done was done through God.