John 15

¹“I am the genuine vine, and my Father is the cultivator. ²Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he cleanses, so that it may bear even more fruit. ³You are already clean because of the message I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I in you. Just as the branch is not able to bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. ⁵I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him—this is the one who bears much fruit, because apart from me you are able to do nothing at all. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch and withers; they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ⁷If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this: that you bear much fruit and prove to be my apprentices. ⁹Just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my instructions, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s instructions and remain in his love. ¹¹I have spoken these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

¹²This is my instruction: that you love one another just as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I instruct you. ¹⁵I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you should go and bear fruit—fruit that remains—so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you. ¹⁷I am instructing you in these things so that you may love one another.

¹⁸If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you do not belong to the world—on the contrary, I chose you out of the world—for this reason, the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³The one who hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴If I had not performed works among them that no one else performed, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵But this happened so that the word written in their law might be fulfilled: ‘They hated me for no reason.’

²⁶When the Paraklētos comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷And you also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”