Nicodemus Comes at Night

¹There was a man named Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, because no one could perform the miracles you do unless God were with him." ³Jesus replied, "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." ⁴Nicodemus asked him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He can't go back into his mother's womb and be born a second time, can he?" ⁵Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a person is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶What is born from the flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Don't be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born again.' ⁸The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. It is the same with everyone born of the Spirit." ⁹Nicodemus responded, "How can these things be?" ¹⁰Jesus said to him, "You are Israel's teacher, and you don't understand these things? ¹¹Truly, truly, I tell you, we speak about what we know and testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. ¹²If I told you about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven — the Son of Man, who is in heaven. ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. ¹⁹This is the condemnation: light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. ²¹But he who does the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they are accomplished in God.