Twenty - John - 15

15:1  I am the True Vine, and my Father is the Vine-grower.

15:2  Any unfruitful branch in me he takes away, and he cleanses every fruitful branch, that it may bear more fruit.

15:3  You are already clean because of the Message that I have given you.

15:4  Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains united to the vine; no more can you, unless you remain united to me.

15:5  I am the Vine, you are the branches. He that remains united to me, while I remain united to him--he bears fruit plentifully; for you can do nothing apart from me.

15:6  If any one does not remain united to me, he is thrown away, as a branch would be, and withers up. Such branches are collected and thrown into the fire, and are burnt.

15:7  If you remain united to me, and my teaching remains in your hearts, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be yours.

15:8  It is by your bearing fruit plentifully, and so showing yourselves my disciples, that my Father is honored.

15:9  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; remain in my love.

15:10  If you lay my commands to heart, you will remain in my love; just as I have laid the Father's commands to heart and remain in his love.

15:11  I have told you all this so that my own joy may be yours, and that your joy may be complete.

15:12  This is my command--Love one another, as I have loved you.

15:13  No one can give greater proof of love than by laying down his life for his friends.

15:14  And you are my friends, if you do what I command you.

15:15  I no longer call you 'servants,' because a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have given you the name of 'friends,' because I made known to you everything that I learned from my Father.

15:16  It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that should remain, so that the Father might grant you whatever you ask in my Name.

15:17  I am giving you these commands that you may love one another.

15:18  If the world hates you, you know that it has first hated me.

15:19  If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world--that is why the world hates you.

15:20  Remember what I said to you--'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have laid my Message to heart, they will lay yours to heart also.

15:21  But they will do all this to you, because you believe in my Name, for they do not know him who sent me.

15:22  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have had no sin to answer for; but as it is, they have no excuse for their sin.

15:23  He who hates me hates my Father also.

15:24  If I had not done among them such work as no one else ever did, they would have had no sin to answer for; but, as it is, they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.

15:25  And so is fulfilled what is said in their Law--'They hated me without cause.'

15:26  But, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father-- the Spirit of Truth, who comes from the Father--he will bear testimony to me;

15:27  Yes, and you also are to bear testimony, because you have been with me from the first.