15
“I AM the True Vine, and My Father Is the Vine-Dresser”
1 “I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser.
2 Every branch in union with me that doesn’t produce fruit, he cuts it off. Every branch that does produce fruit, however, he cleans it by pruning, so that it will produce even more fruit.
3 By now ᵖyou have been trimmed clean because of the teaching I have given you.+
4 Live your lives in union with me,+ and I will live my life in union with ᵖyou.+ Just as a branch cannot produce fruit on its own, but must+ continually draw its life from its union+ with the vine, so neither can ᵖyou produce fruit unless you are drawing life from union with me.
5 I AM the vine, and ᵖyou are the branches. If someone is living his life in union with me, and I in union with him, he will produce much fruit;+ for apart from me ᵖyou can accomplish nothing.+
6 If someone doesn’t remain united to me, he will surely be thrown out like a useless branch and dry up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire and burned.
7 If ᵖyou are living in union with me, and my words are dwelling inside of ᵖyou, you may ask for whatever it is that is on ᵖyour hearts,+ and it will be done for ᵖyou.
8 This is how my Father’s glory will surely be displayed:+ By ᵖyou producing much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.+
9 The same kind of love that the Father has shown me, I, likewise, have shown ᵖyou. ᵖYou must continue in my love.
10 ᵖYou will continue in my love if you obey the commandments you have received from me, just as I have obeyed the commandments of my Father, and so continue in his love.
11 These things I have spoken to ᵖyou so that the joy that I have may fill your own hearts,+ and you be filled with the greatest of joy.+
12 This is my commandment: Show one another the same kind of love that I have shown you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than for someone to lay down, for the sake of his friends, his very life.+
14 ᵖYou are my friends if you do the things I command you.
15 No longer do I call you slaves, because a slave doesn’t share his master’s confidence.+ ᵖYou, however, I have called friends, because I have made known to ᵖyou everything that I have heard from my Father.
16 It was not ᵖyou who chose me, but I who chose you and I who appointed you, so that you could go and produce fruit,+ and your fruit endure;+ so that the Father may grant ᵖyou whatever you ask of him in my name.
17 These things I am commanding ᵖyou, that you love one another.
“A Slave Is Not Greater Than His Master”
18 “If the world hates ᵖyou, remember that I myself felt its hatred before you did.
19 If it were the world to which ᵖyou belonged, the world would love you as its very own. As it is, ᵖyou do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you for myself out of the world. That is the reason why the world is sure to hate you.
20 Remember what I told+ you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute, too, ᵖyou; if they obeyed my teaching,+ they will obey, too, ᵖyours.
21 The truth is, these things, all of them, they will do to ᵖyou on account of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them,+ they would not be guilty of sin.+ Now, however, they have for their sin no excuse.
23 If someone hates me, it is my Father, too, whom he hates.
24 If I had not performed before their eyes+ such mighty deeds, such as no one else ever did,+ they would not be guilty of sin.+ Now, however, they have seen, and yet they still hate both me and my Father.
25 Yet this happened to fulfill what is written in their Scriptures+: ‘They hated me undeservedly.+’+
26 “When the one who will come to your aid and strengthen you and make appeals on your behalf+ comes, whom I will send to you from the presence of the Father,+ the Spirit of truth, who from the presence of the Father will surely come, he will bear solemn witness on my behalf.
27 And ᵖyou disciples, too, will do the same yourselves, because ᵖyou have been with+ me+ from the very outset.+