Chapter Three verses 1-21
And there was a man of the Pharisees, his name Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him,
“Rabbi we know that you’ve come, a teacher from God, for no one can do these signs which you’re doing unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Truly, truly I’m telling you, unless someone is born anew he can’t see the kingdom of God!”
Nicodemus says to him,
“How can a person be born being old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered,
“Truly, truly I’m telling you, unless someone is born of water and of the Spirit he can’t enter into the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t wonder that I said to you ‘You must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants and you hear its sound but you don’t know where it’s coming from and where it’s going to, so is everyone who’s been born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus answered and said to him,
“How can these things happen?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“You’re the teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? Truly, truly I’m telling you, that which we know we speak and that which we’ve seen we testify to and you don’t receive our testimony. If I’ve told you earthly things and you don’t believe how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has gone up into heaven except he who has come down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.
“And even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, so that everyone believing in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone believing in him may not perish but may have everlasting life. For God hasn’t sent his Son into the world so that he might judge the world but so that the world might be saved through him. The one believing in him isn’t judged but the one not believing has been judged already because he hasn’t believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
“And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world and men have loved the darkness rather than the light for their works were evil. For everyone doing evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, in case his works are exposed, but the one doing the truth comes to the light so that it may be made evident that his works have come from God.”
This translation, from the Greek Text used for the ‘Authorised’ or ‘King James’Version
Copyright © David Lawrie 1998
This passage “You don’t know these things?” may be freely copied and distributed, provided that this Copyright notice and permission is included, and that there is no alteration either to this notice or to the text of the passage itself.
