Chapter 15

1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.  2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit.  3 You are already clean because 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 abides in the vine, so neither 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, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.  6 If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.  7 If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.  8 In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so you will become My disciples.  9 As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.  10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.  11 These things I have spoken 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 No one has greater love than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  14 You are My friends if you do what I command you.  15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all the things which I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.  16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.  17 These things I command you that you may love one another.

  18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you.  19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  20 Remember the word which I said to you, A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also; if they have kept My word, they will keep yours also.  21 But all these things they will do to you because of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me.  22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.  23 He who hates Me hates My Father also.  24 If I did not do among them the works which no one else has done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.  25 But it is so that the word written in their law may be fulfilled, “They hated Me without cause.”

  26 But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of reality, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify concerning Me;  27 and you testify also, because from the beginning you have been with Me.