John 3:3

Plain English Version

Jesus said to him, “Listen, I am telling you straight, people have to get born again, and then they can be in God’s family.”

Cross References

Matthew 21:31

Then Jesus asked those Jewish leaders, “Which one of that man’s sons did what their father wanted?” They said, “The oldest son did what their father wanted.” Then Jesus said, “Listen. There are people that did bad things, but they will go into God’s family before you mob do. You know, there are some men that get tax money from people and give it to the Roman government. And sometimes a woman does bad things, so if men pay her money she sleeps with them, like a woman sleeps with her husband. But some of those bad people will go into God’s family before you mob do.

Matthew 5:18

Listen. God’s book is really important. Everything in it will happen. You know, the earth and sky are always here. They don’t change. Well, just like that, God’s word and his laws will not change, not even a little bit. They will stay the same until everything in God’s book happens.

Mark 10:14

Jesus saw his followers stopping the kids from coming to him, and he got upset. He said, “Don’t stop those kids. Let them come to me. They are the sort of people God wants. You see, if you are like these little kids, God will let you join his family.

Mark 9:47

It is the same for your eye. If you want to look with your eye at something, and if it gets you to do something bad, you have to look away. It is like you have to dig your eye out. It is better for you to be in God’s family with only one eye, than for God to send you to hell with 2 eyes.

John 1:13

Yes, those people are in God’s family, but they were not born into it the way kids are born into human families. And they did not come from what a human mother or father wanted. God himself gave them new life and made them his kids.

John 1:5

That light shines out into the darkness and makes everything clear, and the darkness can’t put it out.

John 1:51

Then Jesus said to everyone there, “Listen, I am telling you straight, one day you will see heaven open up, and you will see God’s angel messengers going up into heaven, and you will see them coming down on to me. I am God’s special man from heaven.”

John 12:40

He also wrote this in God’s book, “God stopped the people from understanding his message. It’s like he made their eyes blind, and like he made their minds dead. You know, if they understand God’s message properly, they will turn back to God, and he will help them. But they don’t want to do that.”

John 3:4

Nicodemus said, “How can a big man like me get back into his mother’s body and get born again?”

Galatians 6:15

You see, it doesn’t matter if somebody did a young man operation on you, or not. The most important thing is this. God changed you into a new person.

Ephesians 2:1

You know, in the past you mob did lots of bad things. You couldn’t be friends with God. It was like your spirits were dead.

Titus 3:5

God saved us, but he didn’t save us because we did good things. No. He saved us because he felt really sorry for us. Then his Holy Spirit washed us so that we are really clean inside, and he made us like we got born again as new people.

James 3:17

But whenever we think God’s way, we are like this, – We keep away from doing anything bad. – We want to make other people happy, and we want to help them to be friends with each other. – We are easy on other people, not hard. – We listen to people and let them get a fair go. – We feel sorry for people that have problems, and we do everything we can to help them. – We are fair to everybody. We don’t treat some people good and other people like they are rubbish. – We don’t pretend that we are better than we really are.

1 Peter 1:3

God is very good to us. We went wrong, but he feels sorry for us, and he is good to us. Now he puts new life in us, like we get born all over again. Jesus died, but God brought him back to life. From that we know that God will save us too. So let us thank God, the father of our leader, Jesus, and say that he is really good.