John 15:12-27

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.^{(A) 13} No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.^{(B) 14} You are my friends if you do what I command you.^{(C) 15} I do not call you servants^[a] any longer, because the servant^[b] does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.^{(D) 17} I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

The World’s Hatred

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.^{(E) 19} If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Slaves are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.^{(F) 21} But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.^{(G) 22} If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.^{(H) 23} Whoever hates me hates my Father also.^{(I) 24} If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.^{(J) 25} It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’^(K)

²⁶ “When the Advocate^[c] comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.^{(L) 27} You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.^(M)