John 3-4

John 3

¹Now there was among the Pharisees a man named Nicodemus, who was one of the rulers of the Jews.

²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we are certain that you have come from God as a teacher, because no man would be able to do these signs which you do if God was not with him.

³Jesus said to him, Truly, I say to you, Without a new birth no man is able to see the kingdom of God.

⁴Nicodemus said to him, How is it possible for a man to be given birth when he is old? Is he able to go into his mother's body a second time and come to birth again?

⁵Jesus said in answer, Truly, I say to you, If a man's birth is not from water and from the Spirit, it is not possible for him to go into the kingdom of God.

⁶That which has birth from the flesh is flesh, and that which has birth from the Spirit is spirit.

⁷Do not be surprised that I say to you, It is necessary for you to have a second birth.

⁸The wind goes where its pleasure takes it, and the sound of it comes to your ears, but you are unable to say where it comes from and where it goes: so it is with everyone whose birth is from the Spirit.

⁹And Nicodemus said to him, How is it possible for these things to be?

¹⁰And Jesus, answering, said, Are you the teacher of Israel and have no knowledge of these things?

¹¹Truly, I say to you, We say that of which we have knowledge; we give witness of what we have seen; and you do not take our witness to be true.

¹²If you have no belief when my words are about the things of earth, how will you have belief if my words are about the things of heaven?

¹³And no one has ever gone up to heaven but he who came down from heaven, the Son of man.

¹⁴As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up:

¹⁵So that whoever has faith may have in him eternal life.

¹⁶For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life.

¹⁷God did not send his Son into the world to be judge of the world; he sent him so that the world might have salvation through him.

¹⁸The man who has faith in him does not come up to be judged; but he who has no faith in him has been judged even now, because he has no faith in the name of the only Son of God.

¹⁹And this is the test by which men are judged: the light has come into the world and men have more love for the dark than for the light, because their acts are evil.

²⁰The light is hated by everyone whose acts are evil and he does not come to the light for fear that his acts will be seen.

²¹But he whose life is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his acts have been done by the help of God.

²²After these things Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judaea, and there he was with them for some time, giving baptism.

²³Now John was then giving baptism at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people came and were given baptism.

²⁴For at this time John had not been put into prison.

²⁵Then a question came up between John's disciples and a Jew about washing.

²⁶And they went to John and said to him, Rabbi, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the man to whom you gave witness, is now giving baptism, and everyone is going to him.

²⁷And this was John's answer: A man is unable to have anything if it is not given to him from heaven.

²⁸You yourselves give witness that I said, I am not the Christ. What I said was, I am sent before the Christ.

²⁹He who has the bride is the husband: but the husband's friend, whose place is by his side and whose ears are open to him, is full of joy because of the husband's voice: such is my joy, and it is complete.

³⁰He has to become greater while I become less.

³¹He who comes from heaven is greater than all others: he who comes from earth is of the earth, and of the earth are his words: he who comes from heaven is over all.

³²He gives witness of what he has seen and of what has come to his ears; and no man takes his witness as true.

³³He who so takes his witness has made clear his faith that God is true.

³⁴For he whom God has sent says God's words; and God does not give him the Spirit by measure.

³⁵The Father has love for the Son and has put all things into his hands.

³⁶He who has faith in the Son has eternal life; but he who has not faith in the Son will not see life; God's wrath is resting on him.

John 4

¹Now when it was clear to the Lord that word had come to the ears of the Pharisees that Jesus was making more disciples than John and was giving them baptism

²(Though, in fact, it was his disciples who gave baptism, not Jesus himself),

³He went out of Judaea into Galilee again.

⁴And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria.

⁵So he came to a town of Samaria which was named Sychar, near to the bit of land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph:

⁶Now Jacob's fountain was there. Jesus, being tired after his journey, was resting by the fountain. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷A woman of Samaria came to get water, and Jesus said to her, Give me some water.

⁸For his disciples had gone to the town to get food.

⁹The woman of Samaria said to him, Why do you, a Jew, make a request for water to me, a woman of Samaria? She said this because Jews have nothing to do with the people of Samaria.

¹⁰In answer Jesus said, If you had knowledge of what God gives freely and who it is who says to you, Give me water, you would make your prayer to him, and he would give you living water.

¹¹The woman said to him, Sir, you have no vessel and the fountain is deep; from where will you get the living water?

¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the fountain and took the water of it himself, with his children and his cattle?

¹³Jesus said to her, Everyone who takes this water will be in need of it again:

¹⁴But whoever takes the water I give him will never be in need of drink again; for the water I give him will become in him a fountain of eternal life.

¹⁵The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be in need again of drink and will not have to come all this way for it.

¹⁶Jesus said to her, Go, get your husband and come back here with him.

¹⁷In answer, the woman said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have said rightly, I have no husband:

¹⁸You have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband: that was truly said.

¹⁹The woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

²⁰Our fathers gave worship on this mountain, but you Jews say that the right place for worship is in Jerusalem.

²¹Jesus said to her, Woman, take my word for this; the time is coming when you will not give worship to the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.

²²You give worship, but without knowledge of what you are worshipping: we give worship to what we have knowledge of: for salvation comes from the Jews.

²³But the time is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will give worship to the Father in the true way of the spirit, for these are the worshippers desired by the Father.

²⁴God is Spirit: then let his worshippers give him worship in the true way of the spirit.

²⁵The woman said to him, I am certain that the Messiah, who is named Christ, is coming; when he comes he will make all things clear to us.

²⁶Jesus said to her, I, who am talking to you, am he.

²⁷At that point the disciples came back, and they were surprised to see him talking to a woman; but not one of them said to him, What is your purpose? or, Why are you talking to her?

²⁸Then the woman put down her water-pot and went into the town, and said to the people,

²⁹Come and see a man who has been talking to me of everything I ever did! Is it possible that this is the Christ?

³⁰So they went out of the town and came to him.

³¹While this was taking place, the disciples were saying to Jesus, Master, take some food.

³²But he said to them, I have food of which you have no knowledge.

³³So the disciples said one to another, Did anyone give him food?

³⁴Jesus said, My food is to do the pleasure of him who sent me and to make his work complete.

³⁵You would say, Four months from now is the time of the grain-cutting. Take a look, I say to you, at the fields; they are even now white for cutting.

³⁶He who does the cutting now has his reward; he is getting together fruit for eternal life, so that he who did the planting and he who gets in the grain may have joy together.

³⁷In this the saying is a true one, One does the planting, and another gets in the grain.

³⁸I sent you to get in grain which you had no hand in planting: other men did that work, and you take the reward.

³⁹Now a number of the people of that town had faith in him because of the woman's witness: He has been talking to me of everything I ever did.

⁴⁰So when the people came to him they made request to him to be among them for a time, and he was there two days.

⁴¹And a great number more of them came to have faith in him because of what he himself said.

⁴²And they said to the woman, Now we have faith, but not because of your story: we ourselves have given ear to his words, and we are certain that he is truly the Saviour of the world.

⁴³And after the two days he went on from there into Galilee.

⁴⁴For Jesus himself said that a prophet has no honour in the country of his birth.

⁴⁵So when he came into Galilee, the Galilaeans took him to their hearts because of the things which they had seen him do in Jerusalem at the feast — they themselves having been there at the feast.

⁴⁶So he came to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a certain man of high position whose son was ill at Capernaum.

⁴⁷When it came to his ears that Jesus had come from Judaea into Galilee, he went to him and made a request that he would come down to his son, who was near to death, and make him well.

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, You will not have faith if you do not see signs and wonders.

⁴⁹The man said, Sir, come down before my boy is dead.

⁵⁰And Jesus said, Go in peace; your son is living. The man had faith in the word which Jesus said to him and went away.

⁵¹And while he was going down, his servants came to him and said, Your boy is living.

⁵²So he put a question to them as to the hour when he became better; and they said to him, The disease went from him yesterday at the seventh hour.

⁵³It was clear then to the father that this was the very time at which Jesus said to him, Your son is living. And he had faith in Jesus, he and all his family.

⁵⁴Now this is the second sign which Jesus did after he had come out of Judaea into Galilee.