Wednesday, December 23

⁶“I have revealed your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. ⁷Now they understand that everything you have given me comes from you, ⁸because I have given them the words you have given me. They accepted them and really understand that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹I am praying on behalf of them. I am not praying on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me because they belong to you. ¹⁰Everything I have belongs to you, and everything you have belongs to me, and I have been glorified by them. ¹¹I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. ¹²When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled. ¹³But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves. ¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one. ¹⁶They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. ¹⁹And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart.

²⁰“I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, ²¹that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. ²²The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one— ²³I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.

²⁴“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they can see my glory that you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵Righteous Father, even if the world does not know you, I know you, and these men know that you sent me. ²⁶I made known your name to them, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.”

¹When he had said these things, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley. There was an orchard there, and he and his disciples went into it. ²(Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, knew the place too, because Jesus had met there many times with his disciples.) ³So Judas obtained a squad of soldiers and some officers of the chief priests and Pharisees. They came to the orchard with lanterns and torches and weapons.

⁴Then Jesus, because he knew everything that was going to happen to him, came and asked them, “Who are you looking for?” ⁵They replied, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He told them, “I am he.” (Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing there with them.) ⁶So when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they retreated and fell to the ground. ⁷Then Jesus asked them again, “Who are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” ⁸Jesus replied, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, let these men go.” ⁹He said this to fulfill the word he had spoken, “I have not lost a single one of those whom you gave me.”

¹⁰Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, pulled it out and struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear. (Now the slave’s name was Malchus.) ¹¹But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath! Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

¹²Then the squad of soldiers with their commanding officer and the officers of the Jewish leaders arrested Jesus and tied him up. ¹³They brought him first to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. ¹⁴(Now it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jewish leaders that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.)