< John 15 >
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 [As to] every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away; and [as to] every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Ye are already clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, thus neither [can] ye unless ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye [are] the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.
6 Unless any one abide in me he is cast out as the branch, and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall come to pass to you.
8 In this is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and ye shall become disciples of mine.
9 As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you: abide in my love.
10 If ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full.
12 This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 No one has greater love than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you.
15 I call you no longer bondmen, for the bondman does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have set you that ye should go and [that] ye should bear fruit, and [that] your fruit should abide, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he may give you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
18 If the world hate you, know that it has hated me before you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on account of this the world hates you.
20 Remember the word which I said unto you, The bondman 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 also yours.
21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they have not known him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He that hates me hates also my Father.
24 If I had not done among them the works which no other one has done, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me;
27 and ye too bear witness, because ye are with me from [the] beginning.