John 3:10-30

¹⁰Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

¹¹Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen. Yet you do not accept our testimony.

¹²If I told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

¹³No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.

¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

¹⁵so that all who believe in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

¹⁷For God did not send the Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but in order to save the world through him.

¹⁸He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.

¹⁹This is the reason for the judgment: The light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

²⁰For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, so that his deeds will not be exposed.

²¹However, he who practices the truth comes to the light so that it may be plainly seen that his deeds have been done in God.”

²²After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea. There he spent some time with them and baptized.

²³Now John was also baptizing in Aenon near to Salim because there was much water there. People were coming to him and were being baptized,

²⁴for John had not yet been thrown in prison.

²⁵Then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and a Jew about ceremonial washing.

²⁶They went to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan River, about whom you have testified, look, he is baptizing, and they are all going to him.”

²⁷John replied, “A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven.

²⁸You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but instead, 'I have been sent before him.'

²⁹The bride belongs to the bridegroom. Now the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the voice of the bridegroom. This, then, is my joy made complete.

³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.