Chapter 3
Nicodemus Visits Jesus
Verse 1: Now there was an elder Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. | John 3:1
2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God, for no man can do these miraculous signs that you do unless God were with him.” | John 3:2
3 Jesus answered him, “In truth I say to you, unless someone is born from above, they cannot see the kingdom of my Father. | John 3:3
4 When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that it is you who are the children of the living Father.” | Gospel of Thomas 3
5 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person be born when they are old? Can they enter a second time into their mother’s womb and be born?” | John 3:4
6 Jesus answered, “I am he who exists from the undivided. So do not be astonished or amazed that I have told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ | Gospel of Thomas 61, John 3:7
7 Everything that comes from the mortal will perish, because it came from the perishable. But that which comes from the Eternal never perishes, but becomes indestructible.”
8 Nicodemus looked at him stunned and silent, unable to comprehend what Jesus was saying from his own teachings.
9 Jesus continued, “I'm the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did all things come forth, and unto me did the all return. | Gospel of Thomas 77
10 So it is with everyone who is reborn, imbued with the light of my Father. | John 3:8
11 I have come to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like the things inside.”
12 Nicodemus replied, “How is such a thing even possible?” | John 3:9
13 Jesus answered, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and still you do not understand these things? | John 3:10
14 You test the visible, but the invisible you do not know. Split a piece of wood; I'm there. Lift up a stone, and you'll find me there also. | Gospel of Thomas 77
15 In truth I say to you, I speak of what I know and testify to what I have seen, yet you do not receive my testimony. | John 3:11
16 If you don’t believe me when I describe things you can see on earth, how will you believe me when I tell you about the realities of heaven? | John 3:12
17 No one has ascended into heaven except the one had the authority to descend from it, the Son of Man. | John 3:13
18 I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunken; I found none of them thirsty. | Gospel of Thomas 28
19 And my soul became afflicted for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight. | Gospel of Thomas 28
20 Light came into the world, but many hid themselves, for the light reveals the root of every deed. | Gospel of Truth 22–24
21 Whoever remains in ignorance loves the shadow.
22 But the one who knows the truth comes into the light, for his works are of the Father and made manifest. | Gospel of Truth 39
23 For in this way my Father loved those in this world, by giving his unique son, so that everyone who believes into him may not perish but may have eternal life. | John 3:16
24 Whoever believes in me has eternal life; whoever does not will not see life, but instead remains under the weight of your father's wrath.” | John 3:36
25 “You pour over the scriptures convinced that in them you will have eternal life, | John 5:39
26 and yet you refuse or are unwilling to come to me to have life. | John 5:40
27 I do not receive nor accept glory from men. | John 5:41
28 But I know this, the love of my Father is absent in you. | John 5:42
29 I have come in my Father's name, only to be rejected; but let another come in your Father’s name, and you will accept him without hesitation. | John 5:43
30 How can you believe in me, when you accept glory from each another and do not search the glory that comes from the one who manifested itself? | John 5:44
31 Do not think that I will accuse you to my Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. | John 5:45
32 If you understood that Moses spoke for your Father, you would see that I speak for one greater than him. | John 5:46
33 But if you accept his words without questioning their source, how will you accept mine?” | John 5:47
34 Nicodemus could not answer. Everything he knew proclaimed one Father, yet this man spoke of another, greater still.
35 He left troubled, his certainties shaken, wondering if the light he had come seeking would demand he unlearn all he thought was true.
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
36 Now when Jesus became aware that word had reached the Pharisees, “Jesus is gaining and baptizing more disciples than John” | John 4:1
37 (although Jesus himself did not baptize them but his disciples who did), | John 4:2
38 he left Judea and went back to Galilee. | John 4:3
39 And so he went through Samaria, | John 4:4
40 and, on his way, he came to a Samaritan city, which was called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. | John 4:5
41 Jacob's well was there; Jesus arrived there about midday and tired out by his journey, sat beside the well. | John 4:6
42 When a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me something to drink.” | John 4:7
43 (for his disciples had gone to the town to buy food.) | John 4:8
44 The woman said to him, “How can you, who are a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) | John 4:9
45 Jesus answered her, “If you recognized the gift of my Father and who it is that is asking, ‘Give me something drink,’ you would have asked him yourself, and he would have given you living water.” | John 4:10
46 The woman said to him, “Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw water with, and the well is quite deep. Where are you going to get this 'living water' from? | John 4:11
47 Do you think you're more important than our ancestor Jacob, who provided us the well and with his children and his livestock drank from it?” | John 4:12
48 Jesus said to her, “Whosoever drinks of this water shall be thirsty again, | John 4:13
49 but whosoever drinks the water that I will give them shall never thirst. The water that I will give will erupt in them a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” | John 4:14
50 The woman said to him, “Sir, where is this water, so that I am spared from thirst and the constant need to come here and draw water.” | John 4:15
51 Jesus told to her, “Go, call your husband, and then come back here.” | John 4:16
52 The woman answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus replied, “It's true when you say, ‘I have no husband,’ | John 4:17
53 since you’ve had five husbands, and the one currently with you is not your husband. So, what you told me is actually the truth.” | John 4:18
54 “Sir”, The woman said to him, “I can see that you are a prophet. | John 4:19
55 It was on this mountain that our ancestors worshiped on, but your people say that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” | John 4:20
56 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, Woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain. | John 4:21
57 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; the same for the Jews, for salvation is within you. | John 4:22
58 But the hour is coming when action and not belief is worship of the Father, in love and truth for your neighbour, for the Father seeks such as who are like him, | John 4:23
59 the Father is in all of us, and those who follow him must respond with faithful, loving action.” | John 4:24
60 The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will tell us everything.” | John 4:25
61 Jesus replied, “I am not he, but a greater one who is speaking to you.” | John 4:26
62 Just then his disciples arrived. They were shocked that he was speaking with a woman. However, none of them said, “What does she want?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” | John 4:27
63 Then the woman left behind her water jar and returned to the city. She told the people, | John 4:28
64 “You must come and see a man who recounted everything I have ever done! Surely he can't be the Messiah, can he?” | John 4:29
65 And the people left the town and went to see Jesus. | John 4:30
66 Meanwhile the disciples kept asking him, “Rabbi, eat something.” | John 4:31
67 But he told them, “I have food to sustain me that you aren't aware of.” | John 4:32
68 So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did they?” | John 4:33
69 Jesus explained, “My food is that I should do the will of my Father, he who sent me and to finish his work. | John 4:34
70 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? But I tell you, open your eyes and look around you. See how the fields are already ripe for harvesting. | John 4:35
71 Soon the reaper will start to receive wages for gathering the fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. | John 4:36
72 For now the saying holds firm here, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ | John 4:37
73 I will send you to reap that for which you did not labor. For soon others will have labored, and you will enter into their labor.” | John 4:38
74 Many Samaritans from the city believed in him because of what the woman said. She testified, “He told me everything I have ever done.” | John 4:39
75 So when the Samaritans met him, they began asking him to stay with them, and he stayed for two days. | John 4:40
76 And many more believed on account of his word. | John 4:41
77 They said to the woman, “It is no more because of what you say that we believe in him, for we have all heard him ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Messiah.” | John 4:42