John 15

1 "I am the vine, and my Father the vine-grower.

2 "He cuts back any of my branches that bear no fruit, and prunes every fruit-bearing branch, that it may bear more.

3 "Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you.

4 "Abide in me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you, unless you abide in me.

5 "I am the Vine you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, bears abundant fruit; because apart from me you can do nothing.

6 "If any one does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire and burned.

7 "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever your will is, and it shall be yours.

8 "By this is my Father glorified, by your bearing abundant fruit, and so being my disciples.

9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.

10 "If you obey my commands you will abide in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and abide in his love.

11 "I have told you these things that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

12 "This is my command, Love one another as I have loved you.

13 "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14 "You are my friends if you do what I command you.

15 "I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have learned from my Father.

16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

17 "This is my command. to love one another. If the worlds hates you,

18 "do not forget that it hated me first.

19 "If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for that reason the world hates you.

20 "Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not better than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they have obeyed my word, they will obey yours also.

21 "But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they know not Him who sent me.

22 "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

23 "He who hates me hates my Father also.

24 "If I had not done among them such works as none ever did, they would have had no sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.

25 "And so is fulfilled the word written in their Law, ‘They hate me without cause.’

26 "When the Comforter is come whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who comes forth from the Father, he will bear witness of me;

27 "and you to shall bear witness because you have been with me from the first.