Jesus and Nicodemus

3 There was a Pharisee called Nicodemus. He was one of the Jewish leaders. ² He came to speak with Jesus at night. He said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we know that God has sent you to us. We have seen the miracles that you are doing. Nobody could do these things unless God was with him.’ ³ Jesus replied, ‘I tell you this: Unless a person is born from above, they cannot understand the kingdom of God.’ ⁴ Nicodemus asked, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot return into his mother's body. He cannot be born a second time.’ ⁵ Jesus explained, ‘I tell you this: Unless a person is born by water and by God's Spirit, he cannot come into the kingdom of God. ⁶ People give birth to what is human. But God's Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ I said to you, “You must be born from above.” What I said should not surprise you. ⁸ When someone is born by God's Spirit, it is like the wind that blows. The wind blows wherever it chooses to blow. You can hear it. But you do not know where it came from or where it is going.’

⁹ Nicodemus asked, ‘How can this happen?’ ¹⁰ Jesus replied, ‘You are an important teacher of people in Israel. You ought to understand these things! ¹¹ I tell you this: We speak about things that we know. We tell you about what we have seen. But even then, you people do not believe our message. ¹² I have told you about things that happen in this world. And you do not believe me. But now I am telling you about things that happen in heaven. So I do not think that you will ever believe me about those things. ¹³ The Son of Man came down from heaven. Nobody else has gone up to heaven except him. ¹⁴ Long ago Moses lifted up the metal snake in the wilderness to save his people.^[a] In the same way, people must lift up the Son of Man on a cross. ¹⁵ As a result, everyone who believes him will be able to live for ever with God. ¹⁶ God loved the people in the world so much that he gave his one and only Son to save them. As a result, everyone who believes in the Son will not die. Instead, they will live for ever with God.’

¹⁷ God did not send his Son into the world because he wanted to punish people. He sent his Son to save the people in the world from punishment. ¹⁸ God will not punish anyone who believes in his Son. But if people refuse to believe in the Son, God has already decided that he must punish them. They have not believed in God's one and only Son. ¹⁹ God's Son has brought light into the world. But some people did not love the light. They loved the dark instead. That was because they were doing evil things. That is why God has decided to punish those people. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil things hates the light. A person like that will not come to the light because he is afraid. He does not want the bad things that he has done to show clearly. ²¹ But anyone who does what is true will come to the light. The light will show clearly that he has been doing what is right. Everyone can see that he has been obeying God.

Jesus and John the Baptist

²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the country places in Judea. Jesus stayed there with his disciples for some time, and they baptized people there. ²³ John was also baptizing people. He was at a place called Aenon, near Salim, because there was a lot of water there. People were coming to him and John was baptizing them. ²⁴ (This happened before the rulers put John in prison.) ²⁵ John's disciples began to argue with a certain Jew about some Jewish rules. Those rules told people how they should wash properly. ²⁶ The disciples then came to John. They said to him, ‘Teacher, remember the man, Jesus, that you spoke to us about. He was with you on the other side of the Jordan River. Now he is baptizing people and everyone is going to him.’

²⁷ John replied, ‘A man can receive only what God gives to him, nothing else. ²⁸ You yourselves will remember that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but God sent me to prepare things for the Messiah.”^{[b] 29} When a man marries a wife, she belongs to him. The man's special friend listens carefully. He wants to know when the man will arrive. That friend is very happy when he hears the man's voice. I am like that friend, so I am completely happy now. ³⁰ Jesus must become greater, but I must become less important.

³¹ The one who comes from above is greater than all things. A person who comes from the earth belongs to the earth. A person like that speaks only about things that belong to the earth. But the one who comes from heaven is greater than all things. ³² He tells people about the things that he has seen. He tells about what he has heard. But people do not believe his message. ³³ Anyone who does believe his message agrees that God is true. ³⁴ The one that God has sent speaks God's words. God has given his Spirit to fill that person completely. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son. He has given his Son authority over all things. ³⁶ Anyone who believes in the Son has life with God for ever. But anyone who refuses to obey the Son will never have life with God. God will continue to be angry with people like that.’

Jesus talks to a woman from Samaria

4 The Pharisees heard the news that many people were joining Jesus' group of disciples. They heard that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John was baptizing. ² But really Jesus himself did not baptize anyone. It was only Jesus' disciples who baptized people. ³ Jesus discovered what the Pharisees were thinking, so he left Judea. He returned to Galilee. ⁴ On his way, he had to go through Samaria.

⁵ He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. It was near to the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph, many years earlier. ^6-8 Jacob's well was there. Jesus was tired after his journey and he sat down by the well. It was about midday. His disciples had gone to buy food in the town. A woman from Samaria came to the well to get some water. Jesus said to her, ‘Please give a drink to me.’ ⁹ The woman from Samaria said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a woman from Samaria. Why would you ask me to give you a drink?’ (The Jews usually do not talk to people who come from Samaria.)^[c]

¹⁰ Jesus answered the woman, ‘You do not know what God could give to you. I asked you to give a drink to me. But you do not know who I am. If you did know, you would have asked me to give a drink to you. Then I would have given to you water that gives life.’ ¹¹ The woman said, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where can you get this water that gives life? ¹² Jacob, our ancestor, gave this well to us. He, his sons and his sheep, goats and cows all drank its water. Are you saying that you are greater than Jacob?’ ¹³ Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks water from this well will get thirsty again. ¹⁴ But I can give people a different kind of water. Everyone who drinks that kind of water will never get thirsty again. The water that I give them will become like a well inside them. That well will continue to provide water that gives them life for ever with God.’ ¹⁵ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give this water to me. Then I will never get thirsty again. And I will not have to continue to come here so that I can get water.’

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘Go and fetch your husband. Then return here.’ ¹⁷ The woman replied, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say, “I have no husband.” ¹⁸ It is true that you have had five husbands. And now you live with a man who is not your husband. What you have said is completely true.’ ¹⁹ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped God on this mountain. But you Jews say that Jerusalem is the right place to worship.’^[d]

²¹ Jesus said to her, ‘Believe me, woman. Soon you will not worship the Father either on this mountain or at Jerusalem. ²² You people from Samaria do not know the one that you worship. But we Jews do know him, because God's salvation comes from among the Jewish people. ²³ But people will soon have a new way to worship the Father. Yes, that time has already come. Those people who really want to worship the Father will worship him in their spirits, in a true way. The Father looks for people who will worship him like that. ²⁴ God is spirit. People who worship him must worship from their spirits in a true way.’

²⁵ The woman said to Jesus, ‘I know that the Messiah will come. He is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’ ²⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘I, who am speaking to you, am he.’

The disciples return

²⁷ At this moment, Jesus' disciples returned. They were surprised to see that Jesus was talking to a woman. But none of them asked him, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you talking to her?’ ²⁸ Then the woman left her water pot and she returned to the town. She said to the people there, ²⁹ ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything about myself. He told me all the things that I have ever done! He must be the Messiah!’ ³⁰ So they left the town and they went to find Jesus.

³¹ While that was happening, the disciples said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, eat something.’ ³² But he said to them, ‘I have food that I can eat. But you do not know about it.’ ³³ So the disciples asked each other, ‘Could someone have brought food to him?’ ³⁴ Jesus said to them, ‘My Father has sent me. I must do the things he wants me to do. I must finish the work that he has given to me to do. That is my food. ³⁵ You often say, “It is still four more months until the plants in the farmers' fields will be ready for the harvest.” But I say that you should open your eyes. Look at the fields. The plants are ready for the harvest now. ³⁶ The workers are already bringing in the fruit and their master is paying them. As a result, people are receiving life for ever with God. So the person who plants the seeds will be very happy. And the person who brings in the fruit will also be very happy. Both of them will be happy together. ³⁷ You also say, “One person plants the seeds and another person brings in the fruit.” Now you can see that this is true. ³⁸ I have sent you to bring people to me like a harvest of fruit. You did not do the work to prepare that fruit. Other people did that hard work. Now you have brought in the fruit that they worked for. That makes you happy.’

³⁹ Many of the people who lived in that town in Samaria heard the woman's story. She had said to them, ‘He told me all the things that I have ever done!’ Because of this, they believed in Jesus. ⁴⁰ So when these people came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them. So he stayed there for two days. ⁴¹ Many more people believed in Jesus when they listened to his own words. ⁴² The people said to the woman, ‘Now we believe in him because we ourselves have heard him. We do not believe only because of what you told us. He really is the man that God has sent to save the world. We know that now.’

Jesus makes an officer's son well

⁴³ After those two days in Samaria, Jesus left there and he went to Galilee. ⁴⁴ Jesus himself had said earlier, ‘When a prophet of God visits his own town, the people there will not accept him.’ ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the people there were happy to see him. They had been in Jerusalem at the Passover festival too. They had seen all the things that Jesus had done there.

⁴⁶ Jesus visited Cana again. This was the town in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. A certain man who was one of the king's officers was there. This officer had a son who was at his home in Capernaum. His son was very ill. ⁴⁷ The officer had heard the news that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea. So he went to Jesus and asked him to go to Capernaum. His son was dying. So he asked Jesus strongly to make his son well again.

⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, ‘You people want me to do great miracles that will surprise you. Unless you see these great miracles, none of you will ever believe my message.’ ⁴⁹ The king's officer said to Jesus, ‘Sir, come with me now before my child dies.’ ⁵⁰ Jesus replied, ‘Go home. Your son will live.’ The man believed what Jesus had said. He started to go home. ⁵¹ While he was on the way, his servants met him. They told him, ‘Your child is now well. He will live.’ ⁵² He asked them, ‘At what time did he start to get well?’ They told him, ‘It was yesterday afternoon, at one o'clock. Then his body was no longer hot.’ ⁵³ Then the father remembered. He knew it was the time when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So the man and all his family believed in Jesus.

⁵⁴ This was the second miracle that Jesus did after he returned from Judea to Galilee.