John 15:12-27

New King James Version

^12 (A)This is My ^(B)commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ^13 (C)Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. ^14 (D)You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, ^(E)for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. ^16 (F)You did not choose Me, but I chose you and ^(G)appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father ^(H)in My name He may give you. ¹⁷ These things I command you, that you love one another.

The World’s Hatred

^18 (I)“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ^19 (J)If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet ^(K)because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ^(L)‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. ^(M)If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But ^(N)all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. ^22 (O)If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, ^(P)but now they have no excuse for their sin. ^23 (Q)He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them ^(R)the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have ^(S)seen and also hated both Me and My Father. ²⁵ But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ^(T)‘They hated Me without a cause.’

The Coming Rejection

^26 (U)“But when the ^[a]Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, ^(V)He will testify of Me. ²⁷ And ^(W)you also will bear witness, because ^(X)you have been with Me from the beginning.