Monday, December 21

²⁵“I have spoken these things while staying with you. ²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.

²⁷“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. ²⁸You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father because the Father is greater than I am. ²⁹I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. ³⁰I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, ³¹but I am doing just what the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Get up, let us go from here.

¹“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. ²He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. ³You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.

⁵“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire and are burned up. ⁷If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.

⁹“Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. ¹⁰If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. ¹²My commandment is this—to love one another just as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I no longer call you slaves because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. ¹⁷This I command you—to love one another.

¹⁸“If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you do not belong to the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you. ²⁰Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my word, they will obey yours too. ²¹But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they do not know the one who sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. ²³The one who hates me hates my Father too. ²⁴If I had not performed among them the miraculous deeds that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen the deeds and have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵Now this happened to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without reason.’ ²⁶When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me, ²⁷and you also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.