New Testament in a Year

²⁹ The next day, John saw Jesus, who was coming towards him. John said, ‘Look! Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of people in the world.^{[a] 30} This is the man that I told you about. I told you, “He comes after me, but he is greater than I am. He was already there before I was born.” ³¹ I did not know him. But I had to show Israel's people who he was. That is why I am baptizing people with water.’

³² Then John told them, ‘I saw God's Spirit come down from heaven. He came down like a dove and he stayed on Jesus. ³³ I would not have known who Jesus was. But God had sent me to baptize people with water. And God told me, “You will see the Spirit come down. He will stay on someone. That is the person who will baptize people with my Holy Spirit.” ³⁴ Now I have seen this. So I can tell you that this is God's Son.’

Jesus' first disciples

³⁵ John was standing there again the next day, with two of his disciples. ³⁶ He saw Jesus, who was walking past them. John said, ‘Look! Here is the Lamb of God.’ ³⁷ When the two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Then Jesus turned round. He saw that they were following him. He asked them, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi (which means “Teacher”), where are you staying?’ ³⁹ Jesus replied, ‘Come with me and you will see.’ So they went with him. They saw where he was staying. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. And they stayed with him that day.

⁴⁰ Andrew was one of the two disciples who had followed Jesus. They had heard what John had said about Jesus. Andrew was Simon Peter's brother. ⁴¹ The first thing that Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon. Andrew said to Simon, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ (‘Messiah’ and ‘Christ’ mean the same.) ⁴² Then he brought Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at Simon and he said, ‘You are Simon, John's son. Your name will be Cephas.’ This name is the same as Peter, which means ‘rock’.

⁴³ The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He met Philip, and Jesus said to Philip, ‘Follow me.’ ⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, came from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip went to find Nathanael. He told Nathanael, ‘We have found the man that Moses wrote about in the book of God's Law. The prophets also wrote about him. He is Jesus, who is Joseph's son, from Nazareth.’ ⁴⁶ Nathanael said, ‘I did not think that anything good could come from Nazareth!’ Philip replied, ‘Come and see.’

⁴⁷ Jesus saw Nathanael, who was coming towards him. Jesus said, ‘Here is a completely honest man. That is what a person from Israel should really be like.’ ⁴⁸ Nathanael asked, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you before Philip asked you to come. I saw you when you were under the fig tree.’ ⁴⁹ Nathanael said, ‘Teacher, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.’ ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, ‘I told you that I saw you under the fig tree. Now you believe me because I told you that. But you will see much greater things than that.’ ⁵¹ And Jesus said to him, ‘I tell you this: You will see heaven open. You will see God's angels. They will be going up and they will be coming down on the Son of Man.’^[b]