John 1:29-51

Easy-to-Read Version

Jesus, the Lamb of God

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God. He takes away the sins of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘There is a man coming after me who is greater than I am, because he was living even before I was born.’ ³¹ I did not know who he was. But I came baptizing people with water so that Israel could know that he is the Messiah.^[a]”

^32-34 Then John said this for everyone to hear: “I also did not know who the Messiah was. But the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘You will see the Spirit come down and rest on a man. He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen this happen. I saw the Spirit come down from heaven like a dove and rest on this man. So this is what I tell people: ‘He is the Son of God.’^[b]”

The First Followers of Jesus

³⁵ The next day John was there again and had two of his followers with him. ³⁶ He saw Jesus walking by and said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

³⁷ The two followers heard him say this, so they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Jesus turned and saw the two men following him. He asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (“Rabbi” means “Teacher.”)

³⁹ He answered, “Come with me and you will see.” So the two men went with him. They saw the place where he was staying, and they stayed there with him that day. It was about four o’clock.

⁴⁰ These men followed Jesus after they had heard about him from John. One of them was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. ⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to go and find his brother Simon. Andrew said to him, “We have found the Messiah.” (“Messiah” means “Christ.”)

⁴² Then Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Cephas.” (“Cephas” means “Peter.^[c]”)

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He met Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the man that Moses wrote about in the law. The prophets wrote about him too. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph. He is from Nazareth.”

⁴⁶ But Nathanael said to Philip, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Philip answered, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said, “This man coming is a true Israelite, one you can trust.^[d]”

⁴⁸ Nathanael asked, “How do you know me?”

Jesus answered, “I saw you when you were under the fig tree, before Philip told you about me.”

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael said, “Teacher, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, “Do you believe this just because I said I saw you under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than that!” ⁵¹ Then he said, “Believe me when I say that you will all see heaven open. You will see ‘angels of God going up and coming down’^[e] on the Son of Man.”