The Wedding in Cana

2 Two days later there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine had given out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine left.”

4 “You must not tell me what to do,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

5 Jesus’ mother then told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 The Jews have rules about ritual washing, and for this purpose six stone water jars were there, each one large enough to hold about a hundred litres. 7Jesus said to the servants, “Fill these jars with water.” They filled them to the brim, 8and then he told them, “Now draw some water out and take it to the man in charge of the feast.” They took him the water, 9which now had turned into wine, and he tasted it. He did not know where this wine had come from (but, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew); so he called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone else serves the best wine first, and after the guests have had plenty to drink, he serves the ordinary wine. But you have kept the best wine until now!”

11 Jesus performed this first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

12 *After this, Jesus and his mother, brothers, and disciples went to Capernaum and stayed there a few days.

Jesus Goes to the Temple

(Matt 21:12, 13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45, 46)

13 *It was almost time for the Passover Festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14There in the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and pigeons, and also the moneychangers sitting at their tables. 15So he made a whip from cords and drove all the animals out of the Temple, both the sheep and the cattle; he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins; 16and he ordered those who sold the pigeons, “Take them out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market place!” 17*His disciples remembered that the scripture says, “My devotion to your house, O God, burns in me like a fire.”

18 The Jewish authorities replied with a question, “What miracle can you perform to show us that you have the right to do this?”

19 *Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple, and in three days I will build it again.”

20 “Are you going to build it again in three days?” they asked him. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple!”

21 But the temple Jesus was speaking about was his body. 22So when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what Jesus had said.

Jesus’ Knowledge of Human Nature

23 While Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in him as they saw the miracles he performed. 24But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew them all. 25There was no need for anyone to tell him about them, because he himself knew what was in their hearts.

Jesus and Nicodemus

3 There was a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. 2One night he went to Jesus and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.” 3Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”d

4 “How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time!” 5“I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus. “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. 7Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.e 8The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9 “How can this be?” asked Nicodemus.

10 Jesus answered, “You are a great teacher in Israel, and you don’t know this? 11I am telling you the truth: we speak of what we know and report what we have seen, yet none of you is willing to accept our message. 12You do not believe me when I tell you about the things of this world; how will you ever believe me, then, when I tell you about the things of heaven? 13And no one has ever gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.”f

14 *As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its saviour.

18 Those who believe in the Son are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged, because they have not believed in God’s only Son. 19This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. 20All those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. 21But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.

Jesus and John

22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the province of Judea, where he spent some time with them and baptized. 23John also was baptizing in Aenon, not far from Salim, because there was plenty of water in that place. People were going to him, and he was baptizing them. 24*(This was before John had been put in prison.)

25 Some of John’s disciples began arguing with a Jewg about the matter of ritual washing. 26So they went to John and said, “Teacher, you remember the man who was with you on the east side of the Jordan, the one you spoke about? Well, he is baptizing now, and everyone is going to him!”

27 John answered, “No one can have anything unless God gives it to him. 28*You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29The bridegroom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the bridegroom’s friend, who stands by and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This is how my own happiness is made complete. 30He must become more important while I become less important.”

He Who Comes from Heaven

31 He who comes from above is greater than all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly matters, but he who comes from heaven is above all. 32He tells what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his message. 33But whoever accepts his message confirms by this that God is truthful. 34The one whom God has sent speaks God’s words, because God gives him the fullness of his Spirit. 35*The Father loves his Son and has put everything in his power. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have life, but will remain under God’s punishment.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John. 2(Actually, Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; only his disciples did.) 3So when Jesus heard what was being said, he left Judea and went back to Galilee; 4on his way there he had to go through Samaria.

5 *In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” 8(His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)

9 *The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?” (Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)h

10 Jesus answered, “If only you knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you haven’t got a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? 12It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his sons and his flocks all drank from it. You don’t claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?”

13 Jesus answered, “All those who drink this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.”

15 “Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.” 16“Go and call your husband,” Jesus told her, “and come back.”

17 “I haven’t got a husband,” she answered.

Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you haven’t got a husband. 18You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.”

19 “I see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. 20“My Samaritan ancestors worshipped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. 23But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God’s Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants. 24God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.”

25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

26 Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”

27 At that moment Jesus’ disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or asked him, “Why are you talking with her?”

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, 29“Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” 30So they left the town and went to Jesus.

31 In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to eat!”

32 But he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 So the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him food?”

34 “My food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do. 35You have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields; the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! 36The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so another who sows and the one who reaps will be glad together. 37The saying is true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ 38I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you profit from their work.”

39 Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days.

41 Many more believed because of his message, 42and they said to the woman, “We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.”

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

43 After spending two days there, Jesus left and went to Galilee. 44*For he himself had said, “A prophet is not respected in his own country.” 45*When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything that he had done during the festival.

46 *Then Jesus went back to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. A government official was there whose son was ill in Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to go to Capernaum and heal his son, who was about to die. 48Jesus said to him, “None of you will ever believe unless you see miracles and wonders.”

49 “Sir,” replied the official, “come with me before my child dies.”

50 Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live!”

The man believed Jesus’ words and went. 51On his way home his servants met him with the news, “Your boy is going to live!”

52 He asked them what time it was when his son got better, and they answered, “It was one o’clock yesterday afternoon when the fever left him.” 53Then the father remembered it was at that very hour that Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his family believed.

54 This was the second miracle that Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

The Healing at the Pool

5 After this, Jesus went to Jerusalem for a religious festival. 2Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pooli with five porches; in Hebrew it is called Bethzatha.j 3A large crowd of sick people were lying in the porches—the blind, the lame, and the paralysed.kl* 5A man was there who had been ill for 38 years. 6Jesus saw him lying there, and he knew that the man had been ill for such a long time; so he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7 The sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one here to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am trying to get in, somebody else gets there first.”

8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” 9Immediately the man got well; he picked up his mat and started walking.

The day this happened was a Sabbath, 10*so the Jewish authorities told the man who had been healed, “This is a Sabbath, and it is against our Law for you to carry your mat.”

11 He answered, “The man who made me well told me to pick up my mat and walk.”

12 They asked him, “Who is the man who told you to do this?”

13 But the man who had been healed did not know who Jesus was, for there was a crowd in that place, and Jesus had slipped away.

14 Afterwards, Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “Listen, you are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

15 Then the man left and told the Jewish authorities that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16So they began to persecute Jesus, because he had done this healing on a Sabbath. 17Jesus answered them, “My Father is always working, and I too must work.”

18 This saying made the Jewish authorities all the more determined to kill him; not only had he broken the Sabbath law, but he had said that God was his own Father and in this way had made himself equal with God.

The Authority of the Son

19 So Jesus answered them, “I am telling you the truth: the Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing. What the Father does, the Son also does. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. He will show him even greater things to do than this, and you will all be amazed. 21Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, in the same way the Son gives life to those he wants to. 22Nor does the Father himself judge anyone. He has given his Son the full right to judge, 23so that all will honour the Son in the same way as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.

24 “I am telling you the truth: those who hear my words and believe in him who sent me have eternal life. They will not be judged, but have already passed from death to life. 25I am telling you the truth: the time is coming—the time has already come—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will come to life. 26Just as the Father is himself the source of life, in the same way he has made his Son to be the source of life. 27And he has given the Son the right to judge, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be surprised at this; the time is coming when all the dead will hear his voice 29*and come out of their graves: those who have done good will rise and live, and those who have done evil will rise and be condemned.

Witnesses to Jesus

30 “I can do nothing on my own authority; I judge only as God tells me, so my judgement is right, because I am not trying to do what I want, but only what he who sent me wants.

31 “If I testify on my own behalf, what I say is not to be accepted as real proof. 32But there is someone else who testifies on my behalf, and I know that what he says about me is true. 33*John is the one to whom you sent your messengers, and he spoke on behalf of the truth. 34It is not that I must have a human witness; I say this only in order that you may be saved. 35John was like a lamp, burning and shining, and you were willing for a while to enjoy his light. 36But I have a witness on my behalf which is even greater than the witness that John gave: what I do, that is, the deeds my Father gave me to do, these speak on my behalf and show that the Father has sent me. 37*And the Father, who sent me, also testifies on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his face, 38and you do not keep his message in your hearts, for you do not believe in the one whom he sent. 39You study the Scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak about me! 40Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life.

41 “I am not looking for human praise. 42But I know what kind of people you are, and I know that you have no love for God in your hearts. 43I have come with my Father’s authority, but you have not received me; when, however, someone comes with his own authority, you will receive him. 44You like to receive praise from one another, but you do not try to win praise from the one who alone is God; how, then, can you believe me? 45Do not think, however, that I am the one who will accuse you to my Father. Moses, in whom you have put your hope, is the very one who will accuse you. 46If you had really believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. 47But since you do not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?”

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand Men

(Matt 14:13–21; Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:10–17)

6 After this, Jesus went across Lake Galilee (or, Lake Tiberias, as it is also called). 2A large crowd followed him, because they had seen his miracles of healing those who were ill. 3Jesus went up a hill and sat down with his disciples. 4The time for the Passover Festival was near. 5Jesus looked round and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, so he asked Philip, “Where can we buy enough food to feed all these people?” 6(He said this to test Philip; actually he already knew what he would do.)

7 Philip answered, “For everyone to have even a little, it would take more than two hundred silver coinsm to buy enough bread.”

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, who was Simon Peter’s brother, said, 9“There is a boy here who has five loaves of barley bread and two fish. But they will certainly not be enough for all these people.”

10 “Make the people sit down,” Jesus told them. (There was a lot of grass there.) So all the people sat down; there were about 5,000 men. 11Jesus took the bread, gave thanks to God, and distributed it to the people who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, and they all had as much as they wanted. 12When they were all full, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces left over; let us not waste any.” 13So they gathered them all up and filled twelve baskets with the pieces left over from the five barley loaves which the people had eaten.

14 Seeing this miracle that Jesus had performed, the people there said, “Surely this is the Prophetn who was to come into the world!” 15Jesus knew that they were about to come and seize him in order to make him king by force; so he went off again to the hills by himself.

Jesus Walks on the Water

(Matt 14:22–23; Mark 6:45–52)

16 When evening came, Jesus’ disciples went down to the lake, 17got into a boat, and went back across the lake towards Capernaum. Night came on, and Jesus still had not come to them. 18By then a strong wind was blowing and stirring up the water. 19The disciples had rowed about five or six kilometres when they saw Jesus walking on the water, coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20“Don’t be afraid,” Jesus told them, “it is I!” 21Then they willingly took him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached land at the place they were heading for.

The People Seek Jesus

22 Next day the crowd which had stayed on the other side of the lake realized that there had been only one boat there. They knew that Jesus had not gone in it with his disciples, but that they had left without him. 23Other boats, which were from Tiberias, came to shore near the place where the crowd had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24When the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they got into those boats and went to Capernaum, looking for him.

Jesus the Bread of Life

25 When the people found Jesus on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Teacher, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles. 27Do not work for food that goes bad; instead, work for the food that lasts for eternal life. This is the food which the Son of Man will give you, because God, the Father, has put his mark of approval on him.”

28 So they asked him, “What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?”

29 Jesus answered, “What God wants you to do is to believe in the one he sent.”

30 They replied, “What miracle will you perform so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31*Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, just as the scripture says, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

32 “I am telling you the truth,” Jesus said. “What Moses gave you was noto the bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the real bread from heaven. 33For the bread that God gives is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they asked him, “give us this bread always.”

35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty. 36Now, I told you that you have seen me but will not believe. 37Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, 38because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39And it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day. 40For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day.”

41 The people started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42So they said, “This man is Jesus son of Joseph, isn’t he? We know his father and mother. How, then, does he now say he came down from heaven?”

43 Jesus answered, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me; and I will raise him to life on the last day. 45*The prophets wrote, ‘Everyone will be taught by God.’ Anyone who hears the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46This does not mean that anyone has seen the Father; he who is from God is the only one who has seen the Father. 47I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. 50But the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live for ever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.”

52 This started an angry argument among them. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

53 Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. 55For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. 57The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate. They later died, but those who eat this bread will live for ever.”

59 Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum.

The Words of Eternal Life

60 Many of his followers heard this and said, “This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?”

61 Without being told, Jesus knew that they were grumbling about this, so he said to them, “Does this make you want to give up? 62Suppose, then, that you should see the Son of Man go back up to the place where he was before? 63What gives life is God’s Spirit; human power is of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you bring God’s life-giving Spirit. 64Yet some of you do not believe.” (Jesus knew from the very beginning who were the ones that would not believe and which one would betray him.) 65And he added, “This is the very reason I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for him to do so.”

66 Because of this, many of Jesus’ followers turned back and would not go with him any more. 67So he asked the twelve disciples, “And you—would you also like to leave?”

68 *Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69*And now we believe and know that you are the Holy One who has come from God.”

70 Jesus replied, “I chose the twelve of you, didn’t I? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71He was talking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. For Judas, even though he was one of the twelve disciples, was going to betray him.