John 3:22-36
New Catholic Bible
22 Final Witness of John the Baptist.[a] After this, Jesus went with his disciples into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized. 23 John was also baptizing at Aenon[b] near Salem, because there was an abundance of water there, and people were coming to be baptized. 24 At that time, John had not yet been imprisoned.
25 Now a dispute about ceremonial washings arose between a certain Jew and the disciples of John. 26 Therefore, they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, is baptizing, and everyone is flocking to him.” 27 John replied,
“No one can receive anything
except what has been given to him from heaven.
28 You yourselves can testify that I said,
‘I am not the Christ.
I have been sent before him.’
29 “It is the bridegroom who has the bride,
but the friend of the bridegroom
who stands by and listens for him
rejoices greatly when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.
This joy of mine
is complete.
30 He must increase;
I must decrease.
He Who Comes from Above[c]
31 “The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly
and speaks of earthly things.
The one who comes from heaven is above all.
32 He bears witness to the things he has seen and heard,
yet no one accepts his testimony.
33 “Whoever accepts his testimony
attests that God speaks the truth.
34 For the one whom God has sent
speaks the words of God,
for God gives him the Spirit without measure.[d]
35 The Father loves the Son,
and he has entrusted everything into his hand.
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life;
whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God rests upon him.”
Footnotes
- John 3:22 Using an image familiar to the Jews (see Deut 31:16; Jer 2:2; Hos 2:18f; Mt 9:15), John attests that Jesus is the true Bridegroom, that is, the one in whose person God enters into the new and definitive covenant with his own.
The witness, moreover, sets himself aside: he is only the friend of the Bridegroom, whose role is to ask for the hand of the bride and, when the wedding feast is prepared, to introduce her to the Bridegroom. - John 3:23 Aenon: the place has not been identified with certainty.
- John 3:31 The evangelist continues his reflection on the mystery of Christ. Jesus is the Son who receives from his Father the fullness of life. He has the mission to reveal it and communicate it to those who believe in him, by giving them the Spirit with whom he himself is filled (v. 34). In rich and symbolic words, he is to show how much the believer’s life is a gift of God and a newness of existence beyond anything that is in the earthly power of people.
- John 3:34 For God gives him the Spirit without measure: another translation is: “And he gives the Spirit without measure.”
