³³ Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’^(A)

³³ Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.^{(A) 34} You will search for me, but you will not find me, and where I am, you cannot come.”^(B)

Christ Our Advocate

2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,^(A)

Sorrow Will Turn into Joy

¹⁶ “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.”^{(A) 17} Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me,’ and ‘because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸ They said, “What does he mean by this ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” ¹⁹ Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? ²⁰ Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. ²¹ When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.^{(B) 22} So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.^(C)

Jesus Foretells His Death

²¹ Again he said to them, “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”^{(A) 22} Then the Jews said, “Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” ²³ He said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are from this world, I am not from this world.^{(B) 24} I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.”^[a](C)