Gospel Reading for Today

John 3:1-17, The Second Testament

Yēsous and Nikodēmos

3:1       There was a human of the Observant [Pharisees], Nikodēmos a name for him, leader of the Youdaians. 2 This person came to him at night and said to him, “My Greatness [=Rabbi], we know that you have come from God [as a] teacher. For no one is able to do these authenticating signs that you do unless God be with him.”

3 Yēsous responded and said to him, “This is especially true to say to you: Unless someone is given a life from above, one isn’t able to see God’s Empire.”

4 Nikodēmos says to him, “How is a human able to be given a life, being old? Is one able to enter into one’s mother’s stomach a second time and to be given a life?”

5 Yēsous responded, “This is especially true to say to you: Unless someone is given life from water and Spirit, one isn’t able to enter into God’s Empire. 6 What has been given life from the flesh is flesh, and what has been given life from the SpirIt’s spirit. 7 Don’t be stunned that I said to you, ‘It’s necessary to be given life from above.’ 8 The Spirit spirits where it wants and you hear its voice, but you do not know from where it comes and where it goes out. So it’s for everyone given life from the Spirit.”

9 Nikodēmos responded and said to him, “How is it possible for these to happen?”

10 Yēsous responded and said to him, “You are Yisraēl’s teacher and you do not know these things? 11 This is especially true to say to you, that: We speak what we know and we witness what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. 12 If I say earthly things to you and you do not trust, how will you trust if I say heavenly things to you? 13 No one has ascended into the heaven except the one descended from the heaven, the Son of Humanity. 14 Just as Mōüsēs raised the status of the snake in the wilderness, so It’s necessary for the Son of Humanity to be raised up in status, 15 so that everyone trusting in him may have Era-Life. 16 For God loved the Kosmos in such a way that he gave his only Son so everyone trusting in him may not be destroyed but have Era-Life. 17 For God did not commission the Son into the Kosmos so he might judge the Kosmos but so the Kosmos might be delivered through him.”