(John testified to him with the cry, 'This was he of whom I said, my successor has taken precedence of me, for he preceded me.')

They asked him, "Then what are you? Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" "No," he answered.

"Then who are you?" they said; "tell us, so that we can give some answer to those who sent us. What have you to say for yourself?"

He said, "I am the voice of one who cries in the desert, 'level the way for the Lord' ??as the prophet Isaiah said."

That is he of whom I said, 'The man who is to succeed me has taken precedence of me, for he preceded me.'

he gazed at Jesus as he walked about, and said, "Look, there is the lamb of God!"

The two disciples heard what he said and went after Jesus.

He said to them, "Come and see." So they went and saw where he stayed, and stayed with him the rest of that day ??it was then about four in the afternoon.

One of the two men who heard what John said and went after Jesus was Andrew, the brother of Peter.

He took him to Jesus; Jesus gazed at him and said, "You are Simon, the son of John? Your name is to be Cephas" (meaning 'Peter' or 'rock').

"Nazaret!" said Nathanael, "can anything good come out of Nazaret?" "Come and see," said Philip.

Jesus saw Nathanael approaching and said of him, "Here is a genuine Israelite! There is no guile in him."

Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered, "When you were under that fig tree, before ever Philip called you, I saw you."

"Rabbi," said Nathanael, "you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel!"

He said to him, "Truly, truly I tell you all, you shall see heaven open wide and God's angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man."

As the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."

"Woman," said Jesus, "what have you to do with me? My time has not come yet."

His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Jesus said, "Fill up the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim.

Then he said, "Now draw some out, and take it to the manager of the feast." They did so;

and said to him, "Everybody serves the good wine first, and then the poorer wine after people have drunk freely; you have kept the good wine till now."

and when the disciples recalled what he had said, after he had been raised from the dead, they believed the scripture and the word of Jesus.

he came one night to Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we know you have come from God to teach us, for no one could perform these Signs of yours unless God were with him."

Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother's womb over again and be born?"

You can bear me out, that I said, 'I am not the Christ'; what I said was, 'I have been sent in advance of him.'

and a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink"

The Samaritan woman said, "What? You are a Jew, and you ask me for a drink ??me, a Samaritan!" (Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

"Sir," said the woman, "you have nothing to draw water with, and it is a deep well; where do you get your 'living' water?

"Ah, sir," said the woman, "give me this water, so that I need not thirst or come all this road to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go and call your husband, then come back here."

The woman replied, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You were right in saying, 'I have no husband';

"Sir," said the woman, "I see you are a prophet.

"Woman," said Jesus, "believe me, the time is coming when you will be worshipping the Father neither on this mountain nor at Jerusalem.

The woman said to him, "Well, I know messiah (which means Christ) is coming. When he arrives, he will explain it all to us."

"I am messiah," said Jesus, "I who am talking to you."

At this point his disciples came up; they were surprised that he was talking to a woman, but none of them said, "What is it?" or, "Why are you talking to her?"

But he said to them, "I have food, of which you know nothing."

Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.

and far more of them believed on account of what he said himself.

As they told the woman, "We no longer believe on account of what you said; we have heard for ourselves, we know that he is really the Saviour of the world."

Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you never will believe."

The official said, "Come down, sir, before my boy is dead."

Then the father realized that it had left him at the very time when Jesus had said to him, "Your son is alive"; and he became a believer with all his household.

Jesus saw him lying, and knowing he had been ill for a long while he said to him, "Do you want your health restored?"

Jesus said to him, "Get up, lift your mat, and walk."

So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "This is the sabbath, you have no right to be carrying your mat."

Later on Jesus met him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well and strong; commit no more sins, in case something worse befalls you."

On looking up and seeing a large crowd approaching, he said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for all these people to eat?"

(He said this to test Philip, for he knew what he was going to do himself.)

One of his disciples, Andrew the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,

Jesus said, "Get the people to lie down." Now there was plenty of grass at the spot, so the men lay down, numbering about five thousand.

And when they were satisfied, he said to the disciples, "Gather up the pieces left over, so that nothing may be wasted."

Now when the people saw the Sign he had performed, they said, "This really is the Prophet who is to come into the world!"

but he said to them, "It is I, have no fear";

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

"Well then," they said, "what is the Sign you perform, that we may see it and believe you? What work have you to show?

Then said Jesus, "What Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the real bread from heaven ??33 for the bread of God is what comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

"Ah, sir," they said to him, "give us that bread always."

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty again.

They said, "Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he claim now, 'I have come down from heaven'?"

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life within you.

This he said as he taught in the synagogue at Capharnahum.

Now many of his disciples, on hearing it, said, "This is hard to take in! Who can listen to talk like this?"

Jesus, inwardly conscious that his disciples were murmuring at it, said to them, "So this upsets you?

that was why he said 'I tell you that no one is able to come to me unless he is allowed by the Father').

So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go, too?"

so his brothers said to him, "Leave this and go across into Judaea, to let your disciples witness what you can do;

Jesus said to them, "My time has not come yet, but your time is always at hand;

And the crowd disputed about him hotly; some said, "He is a good man," but others said, "No, he is misleading the people."

Then said some of the Jerusalemites, "Is this not the man they want to kill?

Then said Jesus, "I will be with you a little longer, then I go to Him who sent me;

The Jews said to themselves, "Where is he going, that we will not find him? Is he off to the Dispersion among the Greeks, to teach the Greeks?

On hearing this some of the people said, "This really is the Prophet";

others said, "He is the Christ"; but others said, "No, surely the Christ does not come from Galilee?

Nicodemus, one of their number (the same who had come to him before), said to them,

they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.

(They said this to test him, in order to get a charge against him.) Jesus stooped down, and began to write with his finger on the ground;

but as they persisted with their question, he raised himself and said to them, "Let the innocent among you throw the first stone at her";

And on hearing what he said, they went away one by one, beginning with the older men, till Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Looking up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, sir." Jesus said, "Neither do I; be off, and never sin again."]

So the Pharisees said to him, "You are testifying to yourself; your evidence is not valid."

"Where is your Father?" they said. Jesus replied, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you had known me you would have known my Father also."

Then he said to them again, "I go away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin; where I go, you cannot come."

So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, 'Where I go, you cannot come'?"

He said to them, "You are from the world below, I am from the world above: you belong to this world, I do not belong to this world.

They said, "Who are you?" Jesus replied, "Why should I talk to you at all?

so Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, you will know then who I am, and that I do nothing of my own accord, but speak as the Father has taught me.

As he said this, a number believed in him.

They answered him, "Abraham is our father." "If you are Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then do as Abraham did;

You do the deeds of your father." They said to him, "We are no bastards: we have one father, even God."

Said Jesus, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came here from God; I did not come of my own accord, I was sent by him.

The Jews said to him, "Now we are sure you are mad. Abraham is dead, and so are all the prophets; and you declare, 'If anyone holds to what I say, he will never taste death'!

Then said the Jews to him, "You are not fifty years old, and Abraham has seen you?"

"Truly, truly I tell you," said Jesus, "I have existed before Abraham was born."

Whereupon the neighbours and those to whom he had been a familiar sight as a beggar, said, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?"

Some said, "It is"; others said, "No, but it is like him." He said, "I am the man."

Then said some of the Pharisees, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath"; others said, "How can a sinner perform such Signs?" They were divided on this.

(His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed him to be Christ should be excommunicated.

That was why the man's parents said, "He is of age, ask himself.")