PastorRenewed life

John 3 — Greek text and reception

Saints Translation: John 1–21 [V2]

Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.

Chapter 3

Birth from above and the witness to the Son

Verse 3:1

Greek–English Saints Priority

Now there was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: Nicodemus is both a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews; neither description is reduced to the other. Reception: A011 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:2

Greek–English Saints Priority

He came to Him at night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: Nicodemus speaks in the plural, “we know,” and bases his recognition of a God-sent teacher on the signs. Reception: A011 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:3

Greek–English Saints Priority

Jesus answered him, “Amen, amen, I tell you: unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: ἄνωθεν can mean from above or again. ‘From above’ retains the heavenly-origin sense, while Nicodemus’ question in verse four develops the sense of a second birth. Reception: A011 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:4

Greek–English Saints Priority

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a person be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The explicit second entry into a womb shows Nicodemus construing the birth saying as a repeated physical birth. Reception: A011 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:5

Greek–English Saints Priority

Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I tell you: unless someone is born from water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: Water and Spirit are joined under one preposition, ἐξ. Their relation is preserved; the translation does not replace either with an explanatory identification. Reception: A011 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:6

Greek–English Saints Priority

What is born from the flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The parallel clauses distinguish origin from flesh and from Spirit; the final “spirit” describes what is born, not a second named divine person. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:7

Greek–English Saints Priority

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You all must be born from above.’

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The first ‘you’ is singular, Nicodemus; ‘you all’ marks the plural in the reported declaration. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:8

Greek–English Saints Priority

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with everyone born from the Spirit.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: πνεῦμα can mean wind, breath, or spirit, and πνεῖ is the related verb blows. English cannot reproduce the full wordplay in one ordinary word. ‘Wind’ is adopted in the illustration, ‘Spirit’ in its conclusion; φωνή is sound or voice. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:9

Greek–English Saints Priority

Nicodemus answered Him, “How can these things happen?”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: Nicodemus asks about possibility, “how,” without a new denial being inserted into his question. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:10

Greek–English Saints Priority

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do you not understand these things?

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The article in “the teacher of Israel” sharpens the contrast between recognized teaching status and lack of understanding. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:11

Greek–English Saints Priority

Amen, amen, I tell you: we speak what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, and you all do not receive our testimony.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The speaker moves from ‘I’ to ‘we’ and ‘our,’ while the audience becomes plural. Those shifts are retained without identifying an unexpressed set of fellow witnesses. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:12

Greek–English Saints Priority

If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The contrast is earthly and heavenly matters; both clauses address a plural audience continuing 3:11. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:13

Greek–English Saints Priority

And no one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The base ends with Son of Man, without an additional clause identifying Him as being in heaven. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:14

Greek–English Saints Priority

And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The analogy explicitly names Moses and the wilderness snake; the necessity of the Son of Man’s lifting up remains distinct from a completed event. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:15

Greek–English Saints Priority

so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The source has ἐν αὐτῷ. Here ‘in Him’ is attached to having eternal life; attachment to believing is also grammatically possible. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:16

Greek–English Saints Priority

For God loved the world in this way: He gave the only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: οὕτως presents the manner of God’s love, followed by the giving of the Son. ‘Only-begotten’ follows the contextual convention explained at 1:14; here the noun Son is explicit. The exact endpoint of Jesus’ speech is not grammatically marked by quotation signs in the ancient wording; verses sixteen–twenty-one are printed as its continuation here. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:17

Greek–English Saints Priority

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The two purpose clauses contrast judgment with salvation through the Son; both concern the same world. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:18

Greek–English Saints Priority

The one who believes in Him is not judged; but the one who does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The repeated κρίνω is rendered judge, with adverse judgment in context, rather than shifting between several unrelated English terms. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:19

Greek–English Saints Priority

And this is the judgment: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness more than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: Judgment is explained by the response to the arriving Light; the reason given for preferring darkness is evil deeds. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:20

Greek–English Saints Priority

For everyone who practices base things hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may not be exposed.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The avoidance of light has an expressed purpose: preventing exposure of deeds. φαῦλα describes base or worthless conduct. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:21

Greek–English Saints Priority

But the one who does the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested, because they have been done in God.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: ‘Does the truth’ retains the source’s active ethical expression. ‘In God’ is not replaced by an unexpressed explanation of how the deeds were done. Reception: A012 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:22

Greek–English Saints Priority

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the Judean countryside, and there He stayed with them and was baptizing.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The narrative says that He was baptizing; 4:2 supplies its own qualification that His disciples performed the baptizing. That later qualification is not prematurely inserted here. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:23

Greek–English Saints Priority

John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came and were baptized.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The place is Aenon near Salim; abundant water is the stated reason for baptizing there. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:24

Greek–English Saints Priority

For John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The narrator marks the episode as preceding John’s imprisonment; the aside controls chronology without importing another account. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:25

Greek–English Saints Priority

Then a discussion arose from John’s disciples with a Jew concerning purification.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The source has singular Ἰουδαίου, ‘a Jew,’ not a plural group. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:26

Greek–English Saints Priority

And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you testified—behold, He is baptizing, and everyone is coming to Him.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: “Everyone” belongs to the disciples’ report to John, whose own response begins in 3:27. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:27

Greek–English Saints Priority

John answered, “A person can receive not even one thing unless it has been given to him from heaven.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: “Not even one thing” gives the negative emphatic force; the passive gift is said to come from heaven. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:28

Greek–English Saints Priority

You yourselves bear witness for me that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.’

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: John appeals to his hearers’ own testimony and repeats both his denial and his role as one sent ahead. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:29

Greek–English Saints Priority

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the bridegroom’s friend, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been fulfilled.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: χαρᾷ χαίρει is an emphatic rejoicing construction, expressed as ‘rejoices greatly.’ The bridegroom’s identity is suggested by the comparison without replacing every third-person phrase with an explicit title. Reception: A013 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:30

Greek–English Saints Priority

He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The opposed infinitives increase and decrease depend on the same necessity; the emphatic persons are He and I. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:31

Greek–English Saints Priority

The One coming from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is from the earth and speaks from the earth. The One coming from heaven is above all.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: This paragraph is printed as narration after John’s speech, but continuation of his speech is possible; the boundary is editorial. The repeated ‘from the earth’ is retained three times. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:32

Greek–English Saints Priority

What He has seen and heard, this He testifies, and no one receives His testimony.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The statement ‘no one receives’ is retained alongside the next verse’s receiver; its rhetorical force is not removed by changing it to ‘few.’ Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:33

Greek–English Saints Priority

The one who has received His testimony has set his seal that God is true.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The seal is a metaphor for attestation: receiving the testimony affirms God’s truthfulness. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:34

Greek–English Saints Priority

For the One whom God sent speaks the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The final verb’s subject is not repeated by a noun in this base. Capital ‘He’ permits the divine referent without inserting a name; no recipient of the Spirit is expressly named in the clause. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:35

Greek–English Saints Priority

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: The Father is the subject of both loving and giving; the comprehensive “all things” and singular hand are retained. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).

Verse 3:36

Greek–English Saints Priority

The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.

Textual & Reception Notes

Textual: ἀπειθῶν expresses disobedience or refusal to be persuaded, distinct in form from the preceding πιστεύων, believing. The future refusal of life and present remaining of wrath are both retained. Reception: A014 (see the passage reception register).