| Chapter 15 |
1 | 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. |
2 | Every branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. |
3 | You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. |
4 | Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. |
5 | I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. |
6 | If a man doesn't remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. |
7 | If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done to you. |
8 | In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples. |
9 | Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. |
10 | If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and remain in his love. |
11 | I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. |
12 | This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. |
13 | Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. |
14 | You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. |
15 | No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn't know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. |
16 | You didn't choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. |
17 | I command these things to you, that you may love one another. |
18 | If the world hates you, you know that it has 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, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. |
20 | Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his lord.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. |
21 | But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they don't know him who 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 who hates me, hates my Father also. |
24 | If I hadn't done among them the works which none other did, they wouldn't have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father. |
25 | But that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.' |
26 | When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. |
27 | You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. |