John 1-5

Good News Translation

The Word of Life

1 In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² From the very beginning the Word was with God. ³ Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. ⁴ The Word was the source of life,^[a] and this life brought light to people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.

^6 (A)God sent his messenger, a man named John, ⁷ who came to tell people about the light, so that all should hear the message and believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came to tell about the light. ⁹ This was the real light—the light that comes into the world and shines on all people.

¹⁰ The Word was in the world, and though God made the world through him, yet the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him. ¹² Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God's children. ¹³ They did not become God's children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father.

¹⁴ The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father's only Son.

¹⁵ John spoke about him. He cried out, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘He comes after me, but he is greater than I am, because he existed before I was born.’”

¹⁶ Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another. ¹⁷ God gave the Law through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

John the Baptist's Message^(B)

¹⁹ The Jewish authorities in Jerusalem sent some priests and Levites to John to ask him, “Who are you?”

²⁰ John did not refuse to answer, but spoke out openly and clearly, saying: “I am not the Messiah.”

^21 (C)“Who are you, then?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”

“No, I am not,” John answered.

“Are you the Prophet?”^[b] they asked.

“No,” he replied.

²² “Then tell us who you are,” they said. “We have to take an answer back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

^23 (D)John answered by quoting the prophet Isaiah:

²⁴ The messengers, who had been sent by the Pharisees, ²⁵ then^[c] asked John, “If you are not the Messiah nor Elijah nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?”

²⁶ John answered, “I baptize with water, but among you stands the one you do not know. ²⁷ He is coming after me, but I am not good enough even to untie his sandals.”

²⁸ All this happened in Bethany on the east side of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing.

The Lamb of God

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “There is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me, but he is greater than I am, because he existed before I was born.’ ³¹ I did not know who he would be, but I came baptizing with water in order to make him known to the people of Israel.”

³² And John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and stay on him. ³³ I still did not know that he was the one, but God, who sent me to baptize with water, had said to me, ‘You will see the Spirit come down and stay on a man; he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I have seen it,” said John, “and I tell you that he is the Son of God.”

The First Disciples of Jesus

³⁵ The next day John was standing there again with two of his disciples, ³⁶ when he saw Jesus walking by. “There is the Lamb of God!” he said.

³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this and went with Jesus. ³⁸ Jesus turned, saw them following him, and asked, “What are you looking for?”

They answered, “Where do you live, Rabbi?” (This word means “Teacher.”)

³⁹ “Come and see,” he answered. (It was then about four o'clock in the afternoon.) So they went with him and saw where he lived, and spent the rest of that day with him.

⁴⁰ One of them was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. ⁴¹ At once he found his brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah.” (This word means “Christ.”) ⁴² Then he took Simon to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “Your name is Simon son of John, but you will be called Cephas.” (This is the same as Peter and means “a rock.”)

Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come with me!” (⁴⁴ Philip was from Bethsaida, the town where Andrew and Peter lived.) ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one whom Moses wrote about in the book of the Law and whom the prophets also wrote about. He is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

⁴⁶ “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” answered Philip.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, he said about him, “Here is a real Israelite; there is nothing false in him!”

⁴⁸ Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?”

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

⁴⁹ “Teacher,” answered Nathanael, “you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “Do you believe just because I told you I saw you when you were under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than this!” ^51 (E)And he said to them, “I am telling you the truth: you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man.”

The Wedding in Cana

2 Two days later there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine had given out, Jesus' mother said to him, “They are out of wine.”

⁴ “You must not tell me what to do,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

⁵ Jesus' mother then told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ The Jews have rules about ritual washing, and for this purpose six stone water jars were there, each one large enough to hold between twenty and thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill these jars with water.” They filled them to the brim, ⁸ and then he told them, “Now draw some water out and take it to the man in charge of the feast.” They took him the water, ⁹ which now had turned into wine, and he tasted it. He did not know where this wine had come from (but, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew); so he called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone else serves the best wine first, and after the guests have drunk a lot, he serves the ordinary wine. But you have kept the best wine until now!”

¹¹ Jesus performed this first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

^12 (F)After this, Jesus and his mother, brothers, and disciples went to Capernaum and stayed there a few days.

Jesus Goes to the Temple^(G)

^13 (H)It was almost time for the Passover Festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ There in the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and pigeons, and also the moneychangers sitting at their tables. ¹⁵ So he made a whip from cords and drove all the animals out of the Temple, both the sheep and the cattle; he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins; ¹⁶ and he ordered those who sold the pigeons, “Take them out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!” ^17 (I)His disciples remembered that the scripture says, “My devotion to your house, O God, burns in me like a fire.”

¹⁸ The Jewish authorities came back at him with a question, “What miracle can you perform to show us that you have the right to do this?”

^19 (J)Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple, and in three days I will build it again.”

²⁰ “Are you going to build it again in three days?” they asked him. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple!”

²¹ But the temple Jesus was speaking about was his body. ²² So when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what Jesus had said.

Jesus' Knowledge of Human Nature

²³ While Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in him as they saw the miracles he performed. ²⁴ But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew them all. ²⁵ There was no need for anyone to tell him about them, because he himself knew what was in their hearts.

Jesus and Nicodemus

3 There was a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. ² One night he went to Jesus and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.”

³ Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”^[d]

⁴ “How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time!”

⁵ “I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. ⁷ Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.^{[e] 8} The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ “How can this be?” asked Nicodemus.

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “You are a great teacher in Israel, and you don't know this? ¹¹ I am telling you the truth: we speak of what we know and report what we have seen, yet none of you is willing to accept our message. ^12 (K)You do not believe me when I tell you about the things of this world; how will you ever believe me, then, when I tell you about the things of heaven? ^13 (L)And no one has ever gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.”^[f]

^14 (M)As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.

¹⁸ Those who believe in the Son are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged, because they have not believed in God's only Son. ¹⁹ This is how the judgment works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. ²⁰ Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. ²¹ But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.

Jesus and John

²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the province of Judea, where he spent some time with them and baptized. ²³ John also was baptizing in Aenon, not far from Salim, because there was plenty of water in that place. People were going to him, and he was baptizing them. (^24 (N)This was before John had been put in prison.)

²⁵ Some of John's disciples began arguing with a Jew^[g] about the matter of ritual washing. ²⁶ So they went to John and told him, “Teacher, you remember the man who was with you on the east side of the Jordan, the one you spoke about? Well, he is baptizing now, and everyone is going to him!”

²⁷ John answered, “No one can have anything unless God gives it. ^28 (O)You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹ The bridegroom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the bridegroom's friend, who stands by and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom's voice. This is how my own happiness is made complete. ³⁰ He must become more important while I become less important.”

He Who Comes from Heaven

³¹ He who comes from above is greater than all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly matters, but he who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He tells what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his message. ³³ But whoever accepts his message confirms by this that God is truthful. ³⁴ The one whom God has sent speaks God's words, because God gives him the fullness of his Spirit. ^35 (P)The Father loves his Son and has put everything in his power. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have life, but will remain under God's punishment.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John. (² Actually, Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; only his disciples did.) ³ So when Jesus heard what was being said, he left Judea and went back to Galilee; ⁴ on his way there he had to go through Samaria.

^5 (Q)In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the trip, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” (⁸ His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)

^9 (R)The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?” (Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)^[h]

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “If you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you don't have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? ¹² It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his children and his flocks all drank from it. You don't claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Those who drink this water will get thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life.”

¹⁵ “Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.”

¹⁶ “Go and call your husband,” Jesus told her, “and come back.”

¹⁷ “I don't have a husband,” she answered.

Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you don't have a husband. ¹⁸ You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.”

¹⁹ “I see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. ²⁰ “My Samaritan ancestors worshiped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. ²³ But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God's Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.”

²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”

²⁷ At that moment Jesus' disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or asked him, “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, ²⁹ “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” ³⁰ So they left the town and went to Jesus.

³¹ In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to eat!”

³² But he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ So the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do. ³⁵ You have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields; the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! ³⁶ The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so the one who plants and the one who reaps will be glad together. ³⁷ For the saying is true, ‘Someone plants, someone else reaps.’ ³⁸ I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you profit from their work.”

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days.

⁴¹ Many more believed because of his message, ⁴² and they told the woman, “We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Savior of the world.”

Jesus Heals an Official's Son

⁴³ After spending two days there, Jesus left and went to Galilee. ^44 (S)For he himself had said, “Prophets are not respected in their own country.” ^45 (T)When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything that he had done during the festival.

^46 (U)Then Jesus went back to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. A government official was there whose son was sick in Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to go to Capernaum and heal his son, who was about to die. ⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, “None of you will ever believe unless you see miracles and wonders.”

⁴⁹ “Sir,” replied the official, “come with me before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live!”

The man believed Jesus' words and went. ⁵¹ On his way home his servants met him with the news, “Your boy is going to live!”

⁵² He asked them what time it was when his son got better, and they answered, “It was one o'clock yesterday afternoon when the fever left him.” ⁵³ Then the father remembered that it was at that very hour when Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his family believed.

⁵⁴ This was the second miracle that Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

The Healing at the Pool

5 After this, Jesus went to Jerusalem for a religious festival. ² Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool^[i] with five porches; in Hebrew it is called Bethzatha.^{[j] 3} A large crowd of sick people were lying on the porches—the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. ^{4 [k] 5} A man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶ Jesus saw him lying there, and he knew that the man had been sick for such a long time; so he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ The sick man answered, “Sir, I don't have anyone here to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am trying to get in, somebody else gets there first.”

⁸ Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” ⁹ Immediately the man got well; he picked up his mat and started walking.

The day this happened was a Sabbath, ^10 (V)so the Jewish authorities told the man who had been healed, “This is a Sabbath, and it is against our Law for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹ He answered, “The man who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk.”

¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who told you to do this?”

¹³ But the man who had been healed did not know who Jesus was, for there was a crowd in that place, and Jesus had slipped away.

¹⁴ Afterward, Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “Listen, you are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

¹⁵ Then the man left and told the Jewish authorities that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ So they began to persecute Jesus, because he had done this healing on a Sabbath. ¹⁷ Jesus answered them, “My Father is always working, and I too must work.”

^18 (W)This saying made the Jewish authorities all the more determined to kill him; not only had he broken the Sabbath law, but he had said that God was his own Father and in this way had made himself equal with God.

The Authority of the Son

¹⁹ So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the truth: the Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing. What the Father does, the Son also does. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. He will show him even greater things to do than this, and you will all be amazed. ²¹ Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, in the same way the Son gives life to those he wants to. ²² Nor does the Father himself judge anyone. He has given his Son the full right to judge, ²³ so that all will honor the Son in the same way as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴ “I am telling you the truth: those who hear my words and believe in him who sent me have eternal life. They will not be judged, but have already passed from death to life. ²⁵ I am telling you the truth: the time is coming—the time has already come—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will come to life. ²⁶ Just as the Father is himself the source of life, in the same way he has made his Son to be the source of life. ²⁷ And he has given the Son the right to judge, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Do not be surprised at this; the time is coming when all the dead will hear his voice ^29 (X)and come out of their graves: those who have done good will rise and live, and those who have done evil will rise and be condemned.

Witnesses to Jesus

³⁰ “I can do nothing on my own authority; I judge only as God tells me, so my judgment is right, because I am not trying to do what I want, but only what he who sent me wants.

³¹ “If I testify on my own behalf, what I say is not to be accepted as real proof. ³² But there is someone else who testifies on my behalf, and I know that what he says about me is true. ^33 (Y)John is the one to whom you sent your messengers, and he spoke on behalf of the truth. ³⁴ It is not that I must have a human witness; I say this only in order that you may be saved. ^35 (Z)John was like a lamp, burning and shining, and you were willing for a while to enjoy his light. ³⁶ But I have a witness on my behalf which is even greater than the witness that John gave: what I do, that is, the deeds my Father gave me to do, these speak on my behalf and show that the Father has sent me. ^37 (AA)And the Father, who sent me, also testifies on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his face, ³⁸ and you do not keep his message in your hearts, for you do not believe in the one whom he sent. ^39 (AB)You study the Scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak about me! ⁴⁰ Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life.

⁴¹ “I am not looking for human praise. ⁴² But I know what kind of people you are, and I know that you have no love for God in your hearts. ⁴³ I have come with my Father's authority, but you have not received me; when, however, someone comes with his own authority, you will receive him. ⁴⁴ You like to receive praise from one another, but you do not try to win praise from the one who alone is God; how, then, can you believe me? ⁴⁵ Do not think, however, that I am the one who will accuse you to my Father. Moses, in whom you have put your hope, is the very one who will accuse you. ⁴⁶ If you had really believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But since you do not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?”