Jesus and Nicodemus

John 3:1-22

1. Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council,
2. came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”
3. Jesus replied, “I assure you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4. Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be re-born?”
5. Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
6. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
7. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
8. The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
9. Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?”
10. Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?
11. I assure you, We tell you what We know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe Our testimony.
12. But if you don’t believe Me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
13. No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.
14. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15. so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
18. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
19. This is why people are condemned: The light came into the world. Yet, men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed.
21. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.
22. After this, Jesus and His disciples went to the Judean countryside, where He spent time with them and baptized.