¹ There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews,

² who came to Jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.'

³ Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.

⁴ Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?'

⁵ Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit;

⁶ what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

⁷ Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above.

⁸ The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

⁹ 'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus.

¹⁰ Jesus replied, 'You are the Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!

¹¹ 'In all truth I tell you, we speak only about what we know and witness only to what we have seen and yet you people reject our evidence.

¹² If you do not believe me when I speak to you about earthly things, how will you believe me when I speak to you about heavenly things?

¹³ No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man;

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

¹⁵ so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

¹⁶ For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷ For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

¹⁸ No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son.

¹⁹ And the judgement is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil.

²⁰ And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up;

²¹ but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.'

²² After this, Jesus went with his disciples into the Judaean countryside and stayed with them there and baptised.

²³ John also was baptising at Aenon near Salim, where there was plenty of water, and people were going there and were being baptised.

²⁴ For John had not yet been put in prison.

²⁵ Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew about purification,

²⁶ so they went to John and said, 'Rabbi, the man who was with you on the far side of the Jordan, the man to whom you bore witness, is baptising now, and everyone is going to him.'

²⁷ John replied: 'No one can have anything except what is given him from heaven.

²⁸ 'You yourselves can bear me out. I said, "I am not the Christ; I am the one who has been sent to go in front of him."

²⁹ 'It is the bridegroom who has the bride; and yet the bridegroom's friend, who stands there and listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom's voice. This is the joy I feel, and it is complete.

³⁰ He must grow greater, I must grow less.

³¹ He who comes from above is above all others; he who is of the earth is earthly himself and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven

³² bears witness to the things he has seen and heard, but his testimony is not accepted by anybody;

³³ though anyone who does accept his testimony is attesting that God is true,

³⁴ since he whom God has sent speaks God's own words, for God gives him the Spirit without reserve.

³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to his hands.

³⁶ Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, but anyone who refuses to believe in the Son will never see life: God's retribution hangs over him.'