John 1-5

Tree of Life Version

The Word Becomes Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word.^[a] The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.

⁶ There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that through him everyone might believe. ⁸ He was not the light, but he came to bear witness concerning the light. ⁹ The true light, coming into the world, gives light to every man.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through Him; but the world did not know Him. ¹¹ He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. ¹² But whoever did receive Him, those trusting in His name, to these He gave the right to become children of God. ¹³ They were born not of a bloodline, nor of human desire, nor of man’s will, but of God. ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We looked upon His glory,^[b] the glory of the one and only^[c] from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ John testifies about Him. He cried out, saying, “This is He of whom I said, ‘The One who comes after me is above me, because He existed before me.’” ¹⁶ Out of His fullness, we have all received grace on top of grace. ¹⁷ Torah was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; but the one and only God,^[d] in the Father’s embrace, has made Him known.

John’s Witness to Israel’s Leaders

¹⁹ This is John’s testimony, when the Judean leaders sent kohanim and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

²⁰ He openly admitted and did not deny; he admitted, “I am not the Messiah.”

²¹ “What then? Are you Elijah?” they asked him.

“I am not,” said John.

“Are you the Prophet?”

“No,” he answered.

²² So they said to him, “Who are you? Give us an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

²³ He said, “I am ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of Adonai,”’^[e] as the prophet Isaiah said.”

²⁴ Now those sent were from the Pharisees. ²⁵ They asked him, “If you’re not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet, why then are you immersing?”

²⁶ “I immerse in water,” John answered. “Among you stands One you do not know, ²⁷ coming after me, whose sandals I’m not worthy to untie.” ²⁸ These things happened in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was immersing.

Behold, the Lamb of God

²⁹ The next day, John sees Yeshua coming to him and says, “Behold, the Lamb^[f] of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the One about whom I told you, ‘He who comes after me is above me, because He was before me.’ ³¹ I didn’t know Him, but I came immersing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel.”

³² Then John testified, “I have seen the Ruach coming down like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on Him. ³³ I did not know Him; but the One who sent me to immerse in water said to me, ‘The One on whom you see the Ruach coming down and remaining, this is the One who immerses in the Ruach ha-Kodesh.’ ³⁴ And I have seen and testified that this is Ben-Elohim.”^[g]

Yeshua’s First Disciples

³⁵ Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples ³⁶ and watched Yeshua walking by. He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Yeshua.

³⁸ Yeshua turned around and saw them following. He said to them, “What are you looking for?”

They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?”

³⁹ “Come and see,” Yeshua tells them. So they came and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.^[h]

⁴⁰ Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John speak and followed Yeshua. ⁴¹ First he finds his own brother Simon and tells him, “We’ve found the Messiah!” (which is translated Anointed One).

⁴² Andrew brought Simon to Yeshua. Yeshua looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You shall be called Kefa (which is translated Peter).”

Disciples Offer Witness

⁴³ The next day, Yeshua decided to go to the Galilee. He finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me!” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter.

⁴⁵ Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We’ve found the One that Moses in the Torah, and also the prophets, wrote about—Yeshua of Natzeret, the son of Joseph!”

⁴⁶ “Natzeret!” Nathanael answered. “Can anything good come from there?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷ Yeshua saw Nathanael coming toward Him. He said, “Look, a true Israelite! There’s nothing false in him.”

⁴⁸ Nathanael said to Him, “How do you know me?”

Yeshua answered, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

⁴⁹ “Rabbi,” Nathanael answered, “You are Ben-Elohim! You are the King of Israel!”^[i]

⁵⁰ “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?” Yeshua replied to him. “You will see greater things than that!” ⁵¹ And He said, “Amen, amen I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!”^[j]

Water to Wine

2 On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in the Galilee. Yeshua’s mother was there, ² and Yeshua and His disciples were also invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine ran out, Yeshua’s mother said to Him, “They don’t have any wine!”

⁴ Yeshua said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with you and Me? My hour hasn’t come yet.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

⁶ Now there were six stone jars, used for the Jewish ritual of purification, each holding two to three measures. ^{[k] 7} Yeshua said to them, “Fill the jars with water!” So they filled them up to the top. ⁸ Then He said to them, “Take some water out, and give it to the headwaiter.” And they brought it.

⁹ Now the headwaiter did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. As the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, he calls the bridegroom ¹⁰ and says to him, “Everyone brings out the good wine first, and whenever they are drunk, then the worse. But you’ve reserved the good wine until now!” ¹¹ Yeshua did this, the first of the signs, in Cana of the Galilee—He revealed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

Yeshua Purges the Temple

¹² After this Yeshua went down to Capernaum with His mother, brothers,^[l] and disciples, and they stayed there a few days. 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!”^[m]

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,^[n] 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,^[o] 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,^[p] 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,^[q] 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. ^{[r] 6} Now Jacob’s well was there. So Yeshua, exhausted from the journey, was sitting by the well. It was midday.^[s]

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.)^[t] 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!”

Life for a Dying Son

⁴³ After the two days, He went on from there into the Galilee. ⁴⁴ Now Yeshua Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. ⁴⁵ But when He came into the Galilee, they welcomed Him. For they had seen all He had done at the feast in Jerusalem, since they also had gone up to celebrate.

⁴⁶ So He went again to Cana of the Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. Now there was a nobleman whose son was sick in Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Yeshua had come from Judea to the Galilee, he went to Him and begged Him to come down and heal his son; for he was about to die.

⁴⁸ Then Yeshua said to him, “Unless you all see signs and wonders, you’ll never believe!”

⁴⁹ The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”

⁵⁰ Yeshua tells him, “Go! Your son lives!”

The man believed the word that Yeshua said to him and started off. ⁵¹ While on his way down, his servants met him, saying that his son was living. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when the boy began to get better. They said, “The fever left him yesterday at about the seventh hour.”^[u]

⁵³ Then the father realized that it was the same hour Yeshua said to him, “Your son lives!” Now he himself believed, along with his whole household. ⁵⁴ Yeshua did this as the second sign, after He had come again from Judea into the Galilee.

Healing on Shabbat

5 After this there was a Jewish feast, and Yeshua went up to Jerusalem. ² Now in Jerusalem there is a pool by the sheep gate, called Bethzatha in Aramaic,^[v] which has five porches. ³ In these a crowd of invalids was lying around—blind, lame, disabled. (⁴ )^[w]

⁵ Now a certain man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. ⁶ Seeing him lying there and knowing he had been that way a long time, Yeshua said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ The invalid answered Him, “Sir, I have nobody to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I’m trying to get in, somebody else steps down before me!”

⁸ Yeshua tells him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!”

⁹ Immediately, the man was healed! He took up his mat and started walking around. Now that day was Shabbat, ¹⁰ so Judean leaders were saying to the man who was healed, “It’s Shabbat! It’s not permitted for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹ But he answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” ¹³ But the man who had been healed didn’t know who it was, for Yeshua had slipped away into the crowd in that place.

¹⁴ Afterwards, Yeshua finds him in the Temple. He said to him, “Look, you’ve been healed! Stop sinning, so nothing worse happens to you.” ¹⁵ The man left and told the Judean leaders that it was Yeshua who had made him well.

Sent by the Father

¹⁶ Because Yeshua was doing these things on Shabbat, the Judean leaders started persecuting Him. ¹⁷ But Yeshua said to them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” ¹⁸ So for this reason the Judean leaders kept trying even harder to kill Him—because He was not only breaking Shabbat,^[x] but also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

¹⁹ Therefore Yeshua answered them, “Amen, amen I tell you, the Son cannot do anything by Himself. He can do only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He does. He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. ²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever He wants. ²² The Father does not judge anyone, but has handed over all judgment to the Son ²³ so that all should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

²⁴ “Amen, amen I tell you, whoever hears My word and trusts the One who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed over from death into life. ²⁵ Amen, amen I tell you, an hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of Ben-Elohim. Those who hear will live! ²⁶ For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. ²⁷ Also He has given the Son authority to judge, because He is the Son of Man.

²⁸ “Do not be amazed at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice ²⁹ and come out!^[y] Those who have done good will come to a resurrection of life, and those who have done evil will come to a resurrection of judgment. ³⁰ I can do nothing on My own. Just as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, for I do not seek My own will, but the will of the One who sent Me.”

The Father Testifies about the Son

³¹ “If I testify about Myself, My witness is not valid. ³² There is another who testifies about Me, and I know that the testimony He gives is true. ³³ You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. ³⁴ I do not receive the testimony of man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. ³⁵ He was the lamp that was burning and shining, and you wanted to rejoice for a while in his light.

³⁶ “But the testimony I have is greater than that from John. The works the Father has given Me to finish—the very works I am doing—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me. ³⁷ And the Father who sent Me has testified concerning Me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form. ³⁸ Nor do you have His Word living in you, because you do not trust the One He sent. ³⁹ You search the Scriptures because you suppose that in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify about Me. ⁴⁰ Yet you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life!

⁴¹ “I do not accept glory from men. ⁴² But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. ⁴³ I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me. But if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. ⁴⁴ How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that comes from God alone?

⁴⁵ “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have put your hope. ⁴⁶ For if you were believing Moses, you would believe Me—because he wrote about Me. ⁴⁷ But since you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”^[z]