Holman Christian Standard Bible (313 page)

5
 “Do whatever He tells you,” His mother told the servants.

6
 Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained 20 or 30 gallons. 

7
 “Fill the jars with water,”
Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim.
8
 Then He said to them,
“Now draw some out and take it to the chief servant.”
 And they did.

9
 When the chief servant tasted the water (after it had become wine), he did not know where it came from — though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He called the groom
10
 and told him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people have drunk freely, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”

11
 Jesus performed this first sign in Cana of Galilee. He displayed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

12
 After this, He went down to Capernaum, together with His mother, His brothers, and His disciples, and they stayed there only a few days.

Cleansing the Temple Complex

13
 The Jewish
•Passover
 was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 
14
 In the
•temple
complex He found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and He also found the money changers sitting there.
15
 After making a whip out of cords, He drove everyone out of the temple complex with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers' coins and overturned the tables.
16
 He told those who were selling doves,
“Get these things out of here! Stop turning My Father's house into a marketplace! ”

17
 And His disciples remembered that it is written:
Zeal
 
for Your house will consume
 
Me.

18
 So the
•Jews
replied to Him, “What sign of authority will You show us for doing these things? ”

19
 Jesus answered,
“Destroy this sanctuary, and I will raise it up in three days.”
 

20
 Therefore the Jews said, “This sanctuary took 46 years to build, and will You raise it up in three days? ” 

21
 But He was speaking about the sanctuary of His body. 
22
 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this. And they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.

23
 While He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many trusted in His name when they saw the signs He was doing.
24
 Jesus, however, would not entrust Himself to them, since He knew them all
25
 and because He did not need anyone to testify about man; for He Himself knew what was in man. 

John

Jesus and Nicodemus

3
There was a man from the
•Pharisees
 named Nicodemus, a ruler of the
•Jews
.
2
 This man came to Him at night and said, “
•Rabbi
, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with him.” 

3
 Jesus replied,
“
•I assure you
: Unless someone is born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
 

4
 “But how can anyone be born when he is old? ” Nicodemus asked Him. “Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born? ”

5
 Jesus answered,
“I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6
 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7
 Do not be amazed that I told you that you
 
must be born again.
8
 The wind
 
blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
 

9
 “How can these things be? ” asked Nicodemus.

10
 “Are you a teacher
 
of Israel and don't know these things? ”
Jesus replied.
11
 “I assure you: We speak what We know and We testify to what We have seen, but you
 
do not accept Our testimony.
 
12
 If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven?
13
 No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven  — the
•Son
of Man.
14
 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
15
 so that everyone who believes in Him will
 
have eternal life.
 

16
 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His
•One
and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
 
17
 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18
 Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.

19
 “This, then, is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
20
 For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it,
 
so that his deeds may not be exposed.
21
 But anyone who lives by
 
the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
 

Jesus and John the Baptist

22
 After this, Jesus and His disciples went to the Judean countryside, where He spent time with them and baptized.
23
 John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized,
24
 since John had not yet been thrown into prison. 

25
 Then a dispute arose between John's disciples and a Jew about purification. 
26
 So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi, the One you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan, is baptizing — and everyone is flocking to Him.” 

27
 John responded, “No one can receive a single thing unless it's given to him from heaven.
28
 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the
•Messiah
, but I've been sent ahead of Him.' 
29
 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom's friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom's voice. So this joy of mine is complete.
30
 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

The One from Heaven

31
 The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms. The One who comes from heaven is above all. 
32
 He testifies to what He has seen and heard, yet no one accepts His testimony.
33
 The one who has accepted His testimony has affirmed that God is true. 
34
 For God sent Him, and He speaks God's words, since He gives the Spirit without measure.
35
 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands. 
36
 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who refuses to believe in the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him. 

John

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4
When Jesus knew that the
•Pharisees
 heard He was making and baptizing more disciples than John 
2
 (though Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were),
3
 He left Judea and went again to Galilee. 
4
 He had to travel through Samaria, 
5
 so He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 
6
 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening. 

7
 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. 

“Give Me a drink,”
Jesus said to her,
8
 for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

9
 “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a
•Samaritan
 woman? ” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 

10
 Jesus answered,
“If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,' you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”
 

11
 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water'?
12
 You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

13
 Jesus said,
“Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.
14
 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again — ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well
of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
 

15
 “Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won't get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

16
 “Go call your husband,”
He told her,
“and come back here.”

17
 “I don't have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don't have a husband,' ”
Jesus said.
18
 “For you've had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19
 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet.
20
 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 

21
 Jesus told her,
“Believe Me,
•woman
, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22
 You Samaritans
 
worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 
23
 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him.
24
 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
 

25
 The woman said to Him, “I know that
•Messiah
is coming” (who is called Christ ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

26
 “I am He,”
 Jesus told her,
“the One speaking to you.”

The Ripened Harvest

27
 Just then His disciples arrived, and they were amazed that He was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You want? ” or “Why are You talking with her? ”

28
 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the men,
29
 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah? ” 
30
 They left the town and made their way to Him. 

31
 In the meantime the disciples kept urging Him, “
•Rabbi
, eat something.”

32
 But He said,
“I have food to eat that you don't know about.”

33
 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought Him something to eat? ”

34
 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work,”
 Jesus told them.
35
 “Don't you say, ‘There are still four more months, then comes the harvest'? Listen to what I'm telling you: Open
 
your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready
 
for harvest.
36
 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
37
 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.' 
38
 I sent you to reap what you didn't labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from
 
their labor.”

The Savior of the World

39
 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”
40
 Therefore, when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days.
41
 Many more believed because of what He said. 
42
 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.” 

A Galilean Welcome

43
 After two days He left there for Galilee. 
44
 Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 
45
 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him because they had seen everything He did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.