The Living Bible (332 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
After dark one night a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, came for an interview with Jesus. “Sir,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miracles are proof enough of this.”
3
Jesus replied,
“With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this: Unless you are born again, you can never get into the Kingdom of God.”
4
“Born again!” exclaimed Nicodemus. “What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5
Jesus replied,
“What I am telling you so earnestly is this: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit,
*
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
6
Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven;
7
so don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again!
8
Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it will go next, so it is with the Spirit. We do not know on whom he will next bestow this life from heaven.”
9
“What do you mean?” Nicodemus asked.
10-11
Jesus replied,
“You, a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I am telling you what I know and have seen—and yet you won’t believe me.
12
But if you don’t even believe me when I tell you about such things as these that happen here among men, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven?
13
For only I, the Messiah,
*
have come to earth and will return to heaven again.
14
And as Moses in the wilderness lifted up the bronze image of a serpent on a pole, even so I must be lifted up upon a pole,
15
so that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
16
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son
*
so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
18
“There is no eternal doom awaiting those who trust him to save them. But those who don’t trust him have already been tried and condemned for not believing in the only Son of God.
19
Their sentence is based on this fact: that the Light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20
They hated the heavenly Light because they wanted to sin in the darkness. They stayed away from that Light for fear their sins would be exposed and they would be punished.
21
But those doing right come gladly to the Light to let everyone see that they are doing what God wants them to.”
22
Afterwards Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem and stayed for a while in Judea and baptized there.
23-24
At this time John the Baptist was not yet in prison. He was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there.
25
One day someone began an argument with John’s disciples, telling them that Jesus’ baptism was best.
*
26
So they came to John and said, “Master, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River—the one you said was the Messiah—he is baptizing too, and everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us.”
27
John replied, “God in heaven appoints each man’s work.
28
My work is to prepare the way for that man so that everyone will go to him. You yourselves know how plainly I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for him—that is all.
29
The crowds will naturally go to the main attraction
*
—the bride will go where the bridegroom is! A bridegroom’s friends rejoice with him. I am the Bridegroom’s friend, and I am filled with joy at his success.
30
He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
31
“He has come from heaven and is greater than anyone else. I am of the earth, and my understanding is limited to the things of earth.
32
He tells what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them!
33-34
Those who believe him discover that God is a fountain of truth. For this one—sent by God—speaks God’s words, for God’s Spirit is upon him without measure or limit.
35
The Father loves this man because he is his Son, and God has given him everything there is.
36
And all who trust him—God’s Son—to save them have eternal life; those who don’t believe and obey him shall never see heaven, but the wrath of God remains upon them.”
When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard about the greater crowds coming to him than to John to be baptized and to become his disciples—(though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them, but his disciples did)—
3
he left Judea and returned to the province of Galilee.
4
He had to go through Samaria on the way,
5-6
and around noon as he approached the village of Sychar, he came to Jacob’s Well, located on the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jesus was tired from the long walk in the hot sun and sat wearily beside the well.
7
Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink.
8
He was alone at the time as his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9
The woman was surprised that a Jew would ask a “despised Samaritan” for anything—usually they wouldn’t even speak to them!—and she remarked about this to Jesus.
10
He replied,
“If you only knew what a wonderful gift God has for you, and who I am, you would ask me for some
living
water!”
11
“But you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well! Where would you get this living water?
12
And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? How can you offer better water than this which he and his sons and cattle enjoyed?”
13
Jesus replied that people soon became thirsty again after drinking this water.
14
“But the water I give them,”
he said,
“becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life.”
15
“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again and won’t have to make this long trip out here every day.”
16
“Go and get your husband,”
Jesus told her.
17-18
“But I’m not married,” the woman replied.
“All too true!”
Jesus said.
“For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”
19
“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.
20
But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,
*
where our ancestors worshiped?”
21-24
Jesus replied,
“The time is coming, ma’am, when we will no longer be concerned about whether to worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. For it’s not
where
we worship that counts, but
how
we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about him, worshiping blindly, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”
25
The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come—the one they call Christ—and when he does, he will explain everything to us.”
26
Then Jesus told her,
“I am the Messiah!”
27
Just then his disciples arrived. They were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.
28-29
Then the woman left her waterpot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?”
30
So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
31
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat.
32
“No,”
he said,
“I have some food you don’t know about.”
33
“Who brought it to him?” the disciples asked each other.
34
Then Jesus explained:
“My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work.
35
Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for reaping.
36
The reapers will be paid good wages and will be gathering eternal souls into the granaries of heaven! What joys await the sower and the reaper, both together!
37
For it is true that one sows and someone else reaps.
38
I sent you to reap where you didn’t sow; others did the work, and you received the harvest.”
39
Many from the Samaritan village believed he was the Messiah because of the woman’s report: “He told me everything I ever did!”
40-41
When they came out to see him at the well, they begged him to stay at their village; and he did, for two days, long enough for many of them to believe in him after hearing him.
42
Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Savior of the world.”
43-44
At the end of the two days’ stay he went on into Galilee. Jesus used to say, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country!”
45
But the Galileans welcomed him with open arms, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen some of his miracles.
*
46-47
In the course of his journey through Galilee he arrived at the town of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. While he was there, a man in the city of Capernaum, a government official, whose son was very sick, heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was traveling in Galilee. This man went over to Cana, found Jesus, and begged him to come to Capernaum with him and heal his son, who was now at death’s door.
48
Jesus asked,
“Won’t any of you believe in me unless I do more and more miracles?”
49
The official pled, “Sir, please come now before my child dies.”
50
Then Jesus told him,
“Go back home. Your son is healed!”
And the man believed Jesus and started home.
51
While he was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that all was well—his son had recovered.
52
He asked them when the lad had begun to feel better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at about one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!”
53
Then the father realized it was the same moment that Jesus had told him, “Your son is healed.” And the officer and his entire household believed that Jesus was the Messiah.
54
This was Jesus’ second miracle in Galilee after coming from Judea.