John 3:2-28

²This man came to Jesus by night, and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

³Jesus answered and told him, “Most assuredly, I tell you, unless one is born again, that person can’t see the kingdom of God.”

⁴Nicodemus asked Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t go back into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

⁵Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I tell you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, that one can’t enter the Kingdom of God.

⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

⁷Don’t marvel that I told you, ‘You must be born again.’

⁸The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but can’t tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹Nicodemus asked Him, “How can these things be?”

¹⁰“Are you Israel’s teacher,” asked Jesus, “and yet you don’t understand these things?

¹¹Most assuredly, I tell you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you don’t receive our witness.

¹²If I have told you earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

¹³No one has ever gone up into Heaven except the one who came from Heaven — the Son of Man.

¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,

¹⁵that everyone who believes in Him should not die, but have eternal life.

¹⁶For God so sincerely loved the world that He gave His only born Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

¹⁷For God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

¹⁸Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever doesn’t believe is condemned already because that person has not believed in the name of God’s only Son.

¹⁹This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, but people sincerely loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

²⁰Everyone who practices evil hates the light, and doesn’t come to the light, for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

²¹Whoever practices the truth comes to the light to show clearly that their deeds have been done with God.”

²²After this, Jesus and His disciples went out into the countryside of Judea, where He remained with them, and baptized.

²³John was also baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there, and people kept coming to be baptized.

²⁴John had not yet been thrown into prison.

²⁵There were some questions between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification.

²⁶They came to John and told him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, that you have testified about — look, He is baptizing, and everyone is flocking to Him!”

²⁷John replied, “A man can receive nothing, unless it’s given to him from Heaven.

²⁸You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I’m not the Christ, but I have been sent ahead of Him.’