< John 15 >
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser.
2 Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 Now are you pure, through the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me, and I will abide in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If any one abide not in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and withers; and such are gathered, and thrown into the fire, and burned.
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done for you.
8 In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and in this you will be my disciples.
9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 This is my commandment: That you love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no man than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15 I no longer call you servants, because the servant knows not what his master does. But I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you may go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit may remain; that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give you.
17 These things I command you, that you may love one another.
18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word which I spoke to you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things they will do to you on my account, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He that hates me, hates my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works that no other man has done, they would have had no sin; but now they have both seen, and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this is so, that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Paraclete has come, whom I will send to you from my Father, the Spirit of the truth, which proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me;
27 and you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.