John 1
1
The Word Becomes Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2He was with God in the beginning.
3All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being.
4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.
6There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that through him everyone might believe.
8He was not the light, but he came to bear witness concerning the light.
9The true light, coming into the world, gives light to every man.
10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him; but the world did not know Him.
11He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.
12But whoever did receive Him, those trusting in His name, to these He gave the right to become children of God.
13They were born not of a bloodline, nor of human desire, nor of man’s will, but of God.
14And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We looked upon His glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15John testifies about Him. He cried out, saying, “This is He of whom I said, ‘The One who comes after me is above me, because He existed before me.’”
16Out of His fullness, we have all received grace on top of grace.
17Torah was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah.
18No one has ever seen God; but the one and only God, in the Father’s embrace, has made Him known.
John’s Witness to Israel’s Leaders
19This is John’s testimony, when the Judean leaders sent kohanim and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20He openly admitted and did not deny; he admitted, “I am not the Messiah.”
21“What then? Are you Elijah?” they asked him. “I am not,” said John. “Are you the Prophet?” “No,” he answered.
22So they said to him, “Who are you? Give us an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23He said, “I am ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of Adonai,”’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
24Now those sent were from the Pharisees.
25They asked him, “If you’re not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet, why then are you immersing?”
26“I immerse in water,” John answered. “Among you stands One you do not know,
27coming after me, whose sandals I’m not worthy to untie.”
28These things happened in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was immersing.
Behold, the Lamb of God
29The next day, John sees Yeshua coming to him and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30This is the One about whom I told you, ‘He who comes after me is above me, because He was before me.’
31I didn’t know Him, but I came immersing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel.”
32Then John testified, “I have seen the Ruach coming down like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on Him.
33I did not know Him; but the One who sent me to immerse in water said to me, ‘The One on whom you see the Ruach coming down and remaining, this is the One who immerses in the Ruach ha-Kodesh.’
34And I have seen and testified that this is Ben-Elohim.”
Yeshua’s First Disciples
35Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples
36and watched Yeshua walking by. He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Yeshua.
38Yeshua turned around and saw them following. He said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39“Come and see,” Yeshua tells them. So they came and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.
40Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John speak and followed Yeshua.
41First he finds his own brother Simon and tells him, “We’ve found the Messiah!” (which is translated Anointed One).
42Andrew brought Simon to Yeshua. Yeshua looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You shall be called Kefa (which is translated Peter).”
Disciples Offer Witness
43The next day, Yeshua decided to go to the Galilee. He finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me!”
44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter.
45Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We’ve found the One that Moses in the Torah, and also the prophets, wrote about—Yeshua of Natzeret, the son of Joseph!”
46“Natzeret!” Nathanael answered. “Can anything good come from there?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47Yeshua saw Nathanael coming toward Him. He said, “Look, a true Israelite! There’s nothing false in him.”
48Nathanael said to Him, “How do you know me?” Yeshua answered, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49“Rabbi,” Nathanael answered, “You are Ben-Elohim! You are the King of Israel!”
50“Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?” Yeshua replied to him. “You will see greater things than that!”
51And He said, “Amen, amen I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!”
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John 1: TLV
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Copyright © 2014 - Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society
John 1
1
The Life-Light
1-2The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
3-5Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
6-8There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
9-13The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
14The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
15John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”
16-18We all live off his generous abundance,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
Thunder in the Desert
19-20When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest. He didn’t evade the question. He told the plain truth: “I am not the Messiah.”
21They pressed him, “Who, then? Elijah?”
“I am not.”
“The Prophet?”
“No.”
22Exasperated, they said, “Who, then? We need an answer for those who sent us. Tell us something—anything!—about yourself.”
23“I’m thunder in the desert: ‘Make the road straight for God!’ I’m doing what the prophet Isaiah preached.”
24-25Those sent to question him were from the Pharisee party. Now they had a question of their own: “If you’re neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?”
26-27John answered, “I only baptize using water. A person you don’t recognize has taken his stand in your midst. He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I’m not even worthy to hold his coat for him.”
28These conversations took place in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing at the time.
The God-Revealer
29-31The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I’ve been talking about, ‘the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.’ I knew nothing about who he was—only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.”
32-34John clinched his witness with this: “I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, ‘The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ That’s exactly what I saw happen, and I’m telling you, there’s no question about it: This is the Son of God.”
Come, See for Yourself
35-36The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb.”
37-38The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus. Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, “What are you after?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
39He replied, “Come along and see for yourself.”
They came, saw where he was living, and ended up staying with him for the day. It was late afternoon when this happened.
40-42Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John’s witness and followed Jesus. The first thing he did after finding where Jesus lived was find his own brother, Simon, telling him, “We’ve found the Messiah” (that is, “Christ”). He immediately led him to Jesus.
Jesus took one look up and said, “You’re John’s son, Simon? From now on your name is Cephas” (or Peter, which means “Rock”).
43-44The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. When he got there, he ran across Philip and said, “Come, follow me.” (Philip’s hometown was Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter.)
45-46Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, “We’ve found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It’s Jesus, Joseph’s son, the one from Nazareth!” Nathanael said, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding.”
But Philip said, “Come, see for yourself.”
47When Jesus saw him coming he said, “There’s a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body.”
48Nathanael said, “Where did you get that idea? You don’t know me.”
Jesus answered, “One day, long before Philip called you here, I saw you under the fig tree.”
49Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!”
50-51Jesus said, “You’ve become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree? You haven’t seen anything yet! Before this is over you’re going to see heaven open and God’s angels descending to the Son of Man and ascending again.”
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.