The true vine. The husbandman and the branches. A doctrine of love. A sweet comfort against persecutions.
15 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch that does not bear fruit in me, he will take away. And every branch that bears fruit he will prune, so that it may bring forth more fruit. 3 Now you are clean through the words that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and let me abide in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, no more can you unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. 6 If a person does not abide in me, he is cast forth like a branch, and is withered; and men gather it and cast it into the fire, and it burns. 7 If you abide in me, and my words also abide in you, ask what you will, and it shall be done for you. 8 In this is my Father glorified: that you bear much fruit and be made my disciples.
9 As the Father has loved me, even so have I loved you. Continue 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 so that my joy may remain in you, and so that your joy may be full.
12 This is my commandment: that you love together, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love than this has no man, than to bestow his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. 15 Henceforth I do not call you servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should endure; that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he should give it to you.
17 This I command you: love one another. 18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. However because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the saying that I said to you: the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, so will they persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, so will they keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they have not known him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin. But now they have nothing to cloak their sin with.
23 He who hates me, hates my Father. 24 If I had not done works among them which no other man did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen, and yet have hated both me and my Father, 25 even so that the saying is fulfilled that is written in their law: They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, which is the Spirit of truth who proceeds of the Father, he will testify of me. 27 And you shall bear witness also, because you have been with me from the beginning.