Chronological
Jesus Changes Water into Wine
2 Three days later a wedding took place in the city of Cana in Galilee. Yeshua’s mother was there. 2 Yeshua and his disciples had been invited too.
3 When the wine was gone, Yeshua’s mother said to him, “They’re out of wine.”
4 Yeshua said to her, “Why did you come to me? My time has not yet come.”
5 His mother told the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Six stone water jars were there. They were used for Jewish purification rituals. Each jar held 18 to 27 gallons.
7 Yeshua told the servers, “Fill the jars with water.” The servers filled the jars to the brim. 8 Yeshua said to them, “Pour some, and take it to the person in charge.” The servers did as they were told.
9 The person in charge tasted the water that had become wine. He didn’t know where it had come from, although the servers who had poured the water knew. The person in charge called the groom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the best wine first. When people are drunk, the host serves cheap wine. But you have saved the best wine for now.”
11 Cana in Galilee was the place where Yeshua began to perform miracles. He made his glory public there, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, Yeshua, his mother, brothers, and disciples went to the city of Capernaum and stayed there for a few days.
Jesus Throws Merchants and Moneychangers out of the Temple Courtyard
13 The Jewish Passover was near, so Yeshua went to Jerusalem. 14 He found those who were selling cattle, sheep, and pigeons in the temple courtyard. He also found moneychangers sitting there. 15 He made a whip from small ropes and threw everyone with their sheep and cattle out of the temple courtyard. He dumped the moneychangers’ coins and knocked over their tables.
16 He told those who sold pigeons, “Pick up this stuff, and get it out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
17 His disciples remembered that Scripture said, “Devotion for your house will consume me.”
18 The Jews reacted by asking Yeshua, “What miracle can you show us to justify what you’re doing?”
19 Yeshua replied, “Tear down this temple, and I’ll rebuild it in three days.”
20 The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple. Do you really think you’re going to rebuild it in three days?”
21 But the temple Yeshua spoke about was his own body. 22 After he came back to life, his disciples remembered that he had said this. So they believed the Scripture and this statement that Yeshua had made.
23 While Yeshua was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many people believed in him because they saw the miracles that he performed. 24 Yeshua, however, was wary of these believers. He understood people 25 and didn’t need anyone to tell him about human nature. He knew what people were really like.
A Conversation with Nicodemus
3 Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish council. 2 He came to Yeshua one night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that God has sent you as a teacher. No one can perform the miracles you perform unless God is with him.”
3 Yeshua replied to Nicodemus, “I can guarantee this truth: No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”[a]
4 Nicodemus asked him, “How can anyone be born when he’s an old man? He can’t go back inside his mother a second time to be born, can he?”
5 Yeshua answered Nicodemus, “I can guarantee this truth: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh and blood give birth to flesh and blood, but the Spirit gives birth to things that are spiritual. 7 Don’t be surprised when I tell you that all of you must be born from above. 8 The wind[b] blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it’s going. That’s the way it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus replied, “How can that be?”
10 Yeshua told Nicodemus, “You’re a well-known teacher of Israel. Can’t you understand this? 11 I can guarantee this truth: We know what we’re talking about, and we confirm what we’ve seen. Yet, you don’t accept our message. 12 If you don’t believe me when I tell you about things on earth, how will you believe me when I tell you about things in heaven? 13 No one has gone to heaven except the Son of Man, who came from heaven.
14 “As Moses lifted up the snake on a pole in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. 15 Then everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”
16 God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. 18 Those who believe in him won’t be condemned. But those who don’t believe are already condemned because they don’t believe in God’s only Son.
19 This is why people are condemned: The light came into the world. Yet, people loved the dark rather than the light because their actions were evil. 20 People who do what is wrong hate the light and don’t come to the light. They don’t want their actions to be exposed. 21 But people who do what is true come to the light so that the things they do for God may be clearly seen.
John the Baptizer Talks about Christ
22 Later, Yeshua and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized people. 23 John was baptizing in Aenon, near Salim. Water was plentiful there. (People came to John to be baptized, 24 since John had not yet been put in prison.)
25 Some of John’s disciples had an argument with a Jew about purification ceremonies. 26 So they went to John and asked him, “Rabbi, do you remember the man you spoke so favorably about when he was with you on the other side of the Jordan River? Well, he’s baptizing, and everyone is going to him!”
27 John answered, “People can’t receive anything unless it has been given to them from heaven. 28 You are witnesses that I said, ‘I’m not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’
29 “The groom is the person to whom the bride belongs. The best man, who stands and listens to him, is overjoyed when the groom speaks. This is the joy that I feel. 30 He must increase in importance, while I must decrease in importance.
31 “The person who comes from above is superior to everyone. I, a person from the earth, know nothing but what is on earth, and that’s all I can talk about. The person who comes from heaven is superior to everyone 32 and tells what he has seen and heard. Yet, no one accepts what he says. 33 I have accepted what that person said, and I have affirmed that God is truthful. 34 The man whom God has sent speaks God’s message. After all, God gives him the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves his Son and has put everything in his power. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, he will see God’s constant anger.”
A Samaritan Woman Meets Jesus at a Well
4 Yeshua knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John. 2 (Actually, Yeshua was not baptizing people. His disciples were.) 3 So he left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee.
4 Yeshua had to go through Samaria. 5 He arrived at a city in Samaria called Sychar. Sychar was near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s Well was there. Yeshua sat down by the well because he was tired from traveling. The time was about six o’clock in the evening.
7 A Samaritan woman went to get some water. Yeshua said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” 8 (His disciples had gone into the city to buy some food.)
9 The Samaritan woman asked him, “How can a Jewish man like you ask a Samaritan woman like me for a drink of water?” (Jews, of course, don’t associate with Samaritans.)
10 Yeshua replied to her, “If you only knew what God’s gift is and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him for a drink. He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have anything to use to get water, and the well is deep. So where are you going to get this living water? 12 You’re not more important than our ancestor Jacob, are you? He gave us this well. He and his sons and his animals drank water from it.”
13 Yeshua answered her, “Everyone who drinks this water will become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water that I will give them will never become thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give them will become in them a spring that gushes up to eternal life.”
15 The woman told Yeshua, “Sir, give me this water! Then I won’t get thirsty or have to come here to get water.”
16 Yeshua told her, “Go to your husband, and bring him here.”
17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”
Yeshua told her, “You’re right when you say that you don’t have a husband. 18 You’ve had five husbands, and the man you have now isn’t your husband. You’ve told the truth.”
19 The woman said to Yeshua, “I see that you’re a prophet! 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews say that people must worship in Jerusalem.”
21 Yeshua told her, “Believe me. A time is coming when you Samaritans won’t be worshiping the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You don’t know what you’re worshiping. We Jews know what we’re worshiping, because salvation comes from the Jews. 23 Indeed, the time is coming, and it is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for people like that to worship him. 24 God is a spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will tell us everything.” (Messiah is the one called Christ.)
26 Yeshua told her, “I am he, and I am speaking to you now.”
27 At that time his disciples returned. They were surprised that he was talking to a woman. But none of them asked him, “What do you want from her?” or “Why are you talking to her?”
28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back into the city. She told the people, 29 “Come with me, and meet a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” 30 The people left the city and went to meet Yeshua.
31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, have something to eat.”
32 Yeshua told them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples asked each other, “Did someone bring him something to eat?”
34 Yeshua told them, “My food is to do what the one who sent me wants me to do and to finish the work he has given me.
35 “Don’t you say, ‘In four more months the harvest will be here’? I’m telling you to look and see that the fields are ready to be harvested. 36 The person who harvests the crop is already getting paid. He is gathering grain for eternal life. So the person who plants the grain and the person who harvests it are happy together. 37 In this respect the saying is true: ‘One person plants, and another person harvests.’ 38 I have sent you to harvest a crop you have not worked for. Other people have done the hard work, and you have followed them in their work.”
39 Many Samaritans in that city believed in Yeshua because of the woman who said, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans went to Yeshua, they asked him to stay with them. He stayed in Samaria for two days. 41 Many more Samaritans believed because of what Yeshua said. 42 They told the woman, “Our faith is no longer based on what you’ve said. We have heard him ourselves, and we know that he really is the savior of the world.”
A Believing Official(A)
43 After spending two days in Samaria, Yeshua left for Galilee. 44 Yeshua had said that a prophet is not honored in his own country. 45 But when Yeshua arrived in Galilee, the people of Galilee welcomed him. They had seen everything he had done at the festival in Jerusalem, since they, too, had attended the festival.
46 Yeshua returned to the city of Cana in Galilee, where he had changed water into wine. A government official was in Cana. His son was sick in Capernaum. 47 The official heard that Yeshua had returned from Judea to Galilee. So he went to Yeshua and asked him to go to Capernaum with him to heal his son who was about to die.
48 Yeshua told the official, “If people don’t see miracles and amazing things, they won’t believe.”
49 The official said to him, “Sir, come with me before my little boy dies.”
50 Yeshua told him, “Go home. Your son will live.” The man believed what Yeshua told him and left.
51 While the official was on his way to Capernaum, his servants met him and told him that his boy was alive. 52 The official asked them at what time his son got better. His servants told him, “The fever left him yesterday evening at seven o’clock.” 53 Then the boy’s father realized that it was the same time that Yeshua had told him, “Your son will live.” So the official and his entire family became believers.
54 This was the second miracle that Yeshua performed after he had come back from Judea to Galilee.
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.