John 3:5

Plain English Version

Jesus said, “Listen, I am telling you straight, if anyone wants to be in God’s family, they have to get born again God’s way. God has to make them clean, and he has to put his spirit in them.

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 28:19

So go out to all the people in the world, and tell them about me. Teach those people to follow my way, and baptise them with water to show that they belong to the father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 3:11

John kept on talking to the people. He said, “If you say you are sorry for the bad things you did, and if you turn to God, then I will baptise you with water. But somebody is coming soon, and he is more important than me. I’m not even good enough to carry his shoes. I’m just nothing. He will put the Holy Spirit in you, that is, he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire.

Matthew 5:20

I’m telling you this, if you don’t do everything that God says, then you can’t come into his family. You know that mob called Pharisees. They are really strong for our Jewish law. And you know the mob that teach our Jewish law. Well, you have to follow God’s law better than all of that Pharisee mob and that law teacher mob.”

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 16:16

Some people will believe that message, and then you have to take them through that special washing ceremony, called baptism. God will save those people. But God will not save people that don’t believe that message. He will blame them and say they are guilty.

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.

Luke 13:3

No. That is not right. Listen, all of you mob do bad things. You have to stop doing bad things and turn to God. If you don’t turn to God, you will die, just like those men died.

Luke 13:5

No. That is not right. Listen, all of you mob do bad things. You have to stop doing bad things and turn to God. If you don’t turn to God, you will die, just like those people died.”

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 3:3

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.”

John 3:4

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

Acts 2:38

Peter told them, “You have to turn around and follow Jesus. Then let us baptise you, to show that you turned away from the wrong things you are doing, and now you follow Jesus Christ. Then God will not do payback to you for those bad things. And he will give you the Holy Spirit to live in you, just like he promised. You see, God promised to give the Holy Spirit to everyone that he picks to be his own people. That promise is for you, and for your kids, and even for people in other countries a long way away.”

Acts 3:19

So listen. You mob have to change the way you live, and you have to turn back to God, so that he will not blame you or do payback to you for the bad things you did.

Romans 14:17

We belong to God. He doesn’t give us rules about the things that we can’t eat or drink, but he wants us to have his spirit in us so that we will do the things that are right, and we will always feel good and quiet inside ourselves, and we will always be happy. If we live like that as we work for Jesus Christ, then we make God happy. And other people are happy with us too.

Romans 8:2

His spirit is in us, and he gives us new life, and he makes us strong so that we can say no to that bad part of us that tries to make us go wrong. That is the new way that we live, because we belong to Jesus, and it makes us free from the old way of doing bad things and ending up dead.

1 Corinthians 15:50

My Christian friends, this is what I’m telling you. We can’t go to God and live for ever in his family in our normal bodies. They are made of meat, blood, bones, skin, and all that. These bodies that we have now have to die. They can’t go on for ever.

1 Corinthians 2:12

And remember this, God didn’t get us to think the way the people of this world think. No. God gave us his spirit, and his spirit helps us, so we can understand all the good things God gave us.

1 Corinthians 6:11

And I know that some of you used to be bad people like that before. You did that sort of bad thing, but now you believe in Jesus Christ and let him be your boss. And God’s spirit came into you and washed you inside, and he made you God’s own special people, so that God says you are all right now.

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 5:26

He washed us properly clean, not just with water in the baptism ceremony, but with his word too.

1 Peter 1:2

A long time ago, God, our father, knew you, and he picked you to be in his family. His spirit picked you out from other people to make you his special people. You listened to Jesus’s words, and you did whatever he said. Jesus died and his blood came out, and it is like God put that blood of Jesus on you to make you clean. I’m asking God to be properly good to you, and to make you feel really happy and quiet inside yourselves.

1 Peter 3:21

That water is a picture of the baptism ceremony. Like the time our Christian leaders put us under the water to baptise us. They didn’t do that to wash the dirt off the outside of us. No. It’s like that water washed the shame from inside us. When we asked those leaders to baptise us, we asked God to make us clean on the inside, so that we will not feel shame any more. So God saves us and gives us new life. Yes, we can have new life because, after Jesus died, he came back to life again.