⁹ But you are a chosen people,^(A) a royal priesthood,^(B) a holy nation,^(C) God’s special possession,^(D) that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.^{(E) 10} Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;^(F) once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.^{(A) 14} You are my friends^(B) if you do what I command.^{(C) 15} I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.^{(D) 16} You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you^(E) so that you might go and bear fruit^(F)—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.^{(G) 17} This is my command: Love each other.^(H)