John 2.23-3.21
And many people, when they saw what He
had done while He was in Jerusalem
for Passover, believed that He must be
the Son of God, as He had said to them,
and trusted in His Name. But Jesus knew
their hearts. He knew the motives of all men
and needed no one to advise or to
explain to Him the heart of any man.
Thus, to commit to them He would not do.
A Pharisee who sought to understand
His teaching came to Him by night. His name
was Nicodemus. Humbly he began
to say to Jesus, “I know that You came
to us from God, good Teacher, for no man
can do the signs You do but in the Name
of God.” Then Jesus answered and began
to say, “I tell you most assuredly,
unless a man is born again, he can
not see God’s Kingdom.” “But how can this be?”
asked Nicodemus. “How can someone who
is old be born again? For surely, he
cannot return a second time into
his mother’s womb and then be born again?”
And Jesus answered, “I am telling you
the truth: One must be born by water then
by God’s own Spirit if he hopes to gain
an entrance to God’s holy Kingdom. When
I say to you, ‘You must be born again,’
why do you marvel? For the wind blows where
it wishes. You can hear it, hear it plain,
and yet you cannot tell from here to there
where it is going or from where it came.
Just so, we may to blowing winds compare
those born by God’s own Spirit. For the same
is true of them.” Then Nicodemus said
to Him, “How can these things that you proclaim
be true?” And Jesus gently shook His head
and answered, “Are you Israel’s teacher, and
you do not know these things which I have said
to you? Now hear Me; try to understand:
We speak the things We know and testify
what we have seen, yet you would have Us banned
from speaking. You do not receive what I
have spoken to you. For if I have told
you earthly things and you believe not My
instruction, how will you, when I make bold
to tell you things of heaven, trust in Me
to tell the truth? And yet I will unfold
that truth to you, because it cannot be
that anyone to heaven can ascend
but Him Who came from there; and I am He,
the Son of Man. As Moses, God’s own friend,
raised up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted. Then
all who believe in Him our God will bless
with everlasting life. They shall not die.
For God so loved the world, that, to redress
its sinfulness, He sent down from on high
His only Son, that all who would believe
in Him should never perish, never die,
but as a gracious gift from God receive
eternal life. For God sent not His Son
into the world to judge but to relieve
its sinful burden. For what God has done
will save the world, all who believe and who
are born again from heaven. Everyone
who thus believes is not condemned unto
eternal wrath, as those are who do not
believe into the Name of that One Who
was sent by God. And this is what we ought
to know about this condemnation: Light
has come into the world; yet men have sought
the darkness and have loved it more. The spite
with which they view the Light is clearly seen
in all their wicked ways. And to the Light
they will not come, lest all their evil, mean
and hateful ways should be exposed. But he
who does the truth, whose ways are true and clean,
comes to the Light that all may clearly see
his works, that they in God are seen to be.”
