John 15:18-16:11

Common English Bible

If the world hates you

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, I have chosen you out of the world, and you don’t belong to the world. This is why the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you, ‘Servants aren’t greater than their master.’ If the world harassed me, it will harass you too. If it kept my word, it will also keep yours. ²¹ The world will do all these things to you on account of my name, because it doesn’t know the one who sent me.

²² “If I hadn’t come and spoken to the people of this world, they wouldn’t be sinners. But now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me also hates the Father. ²⁴ If I hadn’t done works among them that no one else had done, they wouldn’t be sinners. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ This fulfills the word written in their Law, They hated me without a reason.^[a]

²⁶ “When the Companion^[b] comes, whom I will send from the Father—the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷ You will testify too, because you have been with me from the beginning. 16 ¹ I have said these things to you so that you won’t fall away. ² They will expel you from the synagogue. The time is coming when those who kill you will think that they are doing a service to God. ³ They will do these things because they don’t know the Father or me. ⁴ But I have said these things to you so that when their time comes, you will remember that I told you about them.

I go away

“I didn’t say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I go away to the one who sent me. None of you ask me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ Yet because I have said these things to you, you are filled with sorrow. ⁷ I assure you that it is better for you that I go away. If I don’t go away, the Companion^[c] won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ When he comes, he will show the world it was wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment. ⁹ He will show the world it was wrong about sin because they don’t believe in me. ¹⁰ He will show the world it was wrong about righteousness because I’m going to the Father and you won’t see me anymore. ¹¹ He will show the world it was wrong about judgment because this world’s ruler stands condemned.