12. If you don’t believe me when I tell you about things on earth, how will you believe me when I tell you about things in heaven?
13. No one has gone to heaven except the Son of Man, who came from heaven.
14. “As Moses lifted up the snake ⌊on a pole⌋ in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.
15. Then everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”
16. God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.
17. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world.
18. Those who believe in him won’t be condemned. But those who don’t believe are already condemned because they don’t believe in God’s only Son.
19. This is why people are condemned: The light came into the world. Yet, people loved the dark rather than the light because their actions were evil.
20. People who do what is wrong hate the light and don’t come to the light. They don’t want their actions to be exposed.
21. But people who do what is true come to the light so that the things they do for God may be clearly seen.
22. Later, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized people.
23. John was baptizing in Aenon, near Salim. Water was plentiful there. (People came to John to be baptized,
24. since John had not yet been put in prison.)
25. Some of John’s disciples had an argument with a Jew about purification ceremonies.
26. So they went to John and asked him, “Rabbi, do you remember the man you spoke so favorably about when he was with you on the other side of the Jordan River? Well, he’s baptizing, and everyone is going to him!”
27. John answered, “People can’t receive anything unless it has been given to them from heaven.
28. You are witnesses that I said, ‘I’m not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’
29. “The groom is the person to whom the bride belongs. The best man, who stands and listens to him, is overjoyed when the groom speaks. This is the joy that I feel.
30. He must increase in importance, while I must decrease in importance.