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John 14-15
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 14

Last Supper Discourses. 1 [a]“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith[b] in God; have faith also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 [c]And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.(A) 4 Where [I] am going you know the way.”[d] 5 Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth[e] and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.(B) 7 If you know me, then you will also know my Father.[f] From now on you do know him and have seen him.”(C) 8 Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father,[g] and that will be enough for us.”(D) 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?(E) 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.(F) 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.(G) 12 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.(H) 13 And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.(I) 14 If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.

The Advocate. 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.(J) 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate[h] to be with you always,(K) 17 the Spirit of truth,[i] which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.(L) 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.[j] 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live.(M) 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.(N) 21 Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”(O) 22 Judas, not the Iscariot,[k] said to him, “Master, [then] what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”(P) 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.(Q) 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.

25 “I have told you this while I am with you. 26 The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.(R) 27 Peace[l] I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.(S) 28 [m]You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’(T) If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.(U) 30 I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world[n] is coming. He has no power over me, 31 but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me. Get up, let us go.(V)

Chapter 15

The Vine and the Branches. 1 [o]“I am the true vine,[p] and my Father is the vine grower.(W) 2 He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes[q] so that it bears more fruit. 3 You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.(X) 4 Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. 6 [r](Y)Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.(Z) 8 By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.(AA) 9 As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.(AB) 10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.(AC)

11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.(AD) 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.(AE) 13 [s]No one has greater love than this,(AF) to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends,[t] because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.(AG) 16 It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.(AH) 17 This I command you: love one another.(AI)

The World’s Hatred.[u] 18 “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.(AJ) 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.(AK) 20 Remember the word I spoke to you,[v] ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.(AL) 21 And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,[w] because they do not know the one who sent me.(AM) 22 If I had not come and spoken[x] to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin.(AN) 23 Whoever hates me also hates my Father.(AO) 24 If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father.(AP) 25 But in order that the word written in their law[y] might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’(AQ)

26 “When the Advocate comes whom I will send[z] you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me.(AR) 27 And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.(AS)

Footnotes

  1. 14:1–31 Jesus’ departure and return. This section is a dialogue marked off by a literary inclusion in Jn 14:1, 27: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
  2. 14:1 You have faith: could also be imperative: “Have faith.”
  3. 14:3 Come back again: a rare Johannine reference to the parousia; cf. 1 Jn 2:28.
  4. 14:4 The way: here, of Jesus himself; also a designation of Christianity in Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22.
  5. 14:6 The truth: in John, the divinely revealed reality of the Father manifested in the person and works of Jesus. The possession of truth confers knowledge and liberation from sin (Jn 8:32).
  6. 14:7 An alternative reading, “If you knew me, then you would have known my Father also,” would be a rebuke, as in Jn 8:19.
  7. 14:8 Show us the Father: Philip is pictured asking for a theophany like Ex 24:9–10; 33:18.
  8. 14:16 Another Advocate: Jesus is the first advocate (paraclete); see 1 Jn 2:1, where Jesus is an advocate in the sense of intercessor in heaven. The Greek term derives from legal terminology for an advocate or defense attorney, and can mean spokesman, mediator, intercessor, comforter, consoler, although no one of these terms encompasses the meaning in John. The Paraclete in John is a teacher, a witness to Jesus, and a prosecutor of the world, who represents the continued presence on earth of the Jesus who has returned to the Father.
  9. 14:17 The Spirit of truth: this term is also used at Qumran, where it is a moral force put into a person by God, as opposed to the spirit of perversity. It is more personal in John; it will teach the realities of the new order (Jn 14:26), and testify to the truth (Jn 14:6). While it has been customary to use masculine personal pronouns in English for the Advocate, the Greek word for “spirit” is neuter, and the Greek text and manuscript variants fluctuate between masculine and neuter pronouns.
  10. 14:18 I will come to you: indwelling, not parousia.
  11. 14:22 Judas, not the Iscariot: probably not the brother of Jesus in Mk 6:3 // Mt 13:55 or the apostle named Jude in Lk 6:16, but Thomas (see note on Jn 11:16), although other readings have “Judas the Cananean.”
  12. 14:27 Peace: the traditional Hebrew salutation šālôm; but Jesus’ “Shalom” is a gift of salvation, connoting the bounty of messianic blessing.
  13. 14:28 The Father is greater than I: because he sent, gave, etc., and Jesus is “a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God” (Jn 8:40).
  14. 14:30 The ruler of the world: Satan; cf. Jn 12:31; 16:11.
  15. 15:1–16:4 Discourse on the union of Jesus with his disciples. His words become a monologue and go beyond the immediate crisis of the departure of Jesus.
  16. 15:1–17 Like Jn 10:1–5, this passage resembles a parable. Israel is spoken of as a vineyard at Is 5:1–7; Mt 21:33–46 and as a vine at Ps 80:9–17; Jer 2:21; Ez 15:2; 17:5–10; 19:10; Hos 10:1. The identification of the vine as the Son of Man in Ps 80:15 and Wisdom’s description of herself as a vine in Sir 24:17 are further background for portrayal of Jesus by this figure. There may be secondary eucharistic symbolism here; cf. Mk 14:25, “the fruit of the vine.”
  17. 15:2 Takes away…prunes: in Greek there is a play on two related verbs.
  18. 15:6 Branches were cut off and dried on the wall of the vineyard for later use as fuel.
  19. 15:13 For one’s friends: or: “those whom one loves.” In Jn 15:9–13a, the words for love are related to the Greek agapaō. In Jn 15:13b–15, the words for love are related to the Greek phileō. For John, the two roots seem synonymous and mean “to love”; cf. also Jn 21:15–17. The word philos is used here.
  20. 15:15 Slaves…friends: in the Old Testament, Moses (Dt 34:5), Joshua (Jos 24:29), and David (Ps 89:21) were called “servants” or “slaves of Yahweh”; only Abraham (Is 41:8; 2 Chr 20:7; cf. Jas 2:23) was called a “friend of God.”
  21. 15:18–16:4 The hostile reaction of the world. There are synoptic parallels, predicting persecution, especially at Mt 10:17–25; 24:9–10.
  22. 15:20 The word I spoke to you: a reference to Jn 13:16.
  23. 15:21 On account of my name: the idea of persecution for Jesus’ name is frequent in the New Testament (Mt 10:22; 24:9; Acts 9:14). For John, association with Jesus’ name implies union with Jesus.
  24. 15:22, 24 Jesus’ words (spoken) and deeds (works) are the great motives of credibility. They have seen and hated: probably means that they have seen his works and still have hated; but the Greek can be read: “have seen both me and my Father and still have hated both me and my Father.” Works…that no one else ever did: so Yahweh in Dt 4:32–33.
  25. 15:25 In their law: law is here used as a larger concept than the Pentateuch, for the reference is to Ps 35:19 or Ps 69:5. See notes on Jn 10:34; 12:34. Their law reflects the argument of the church with the synagogue.
  26. 15:26 Whom I will send: in Jn 14:16, 26, the Paraclete is to be sent by the Father, at the request of Jesus. Here the Spirit comes from both Jesus and the Father in mission; there is no reference here to the eternal procession of the Spirit.
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Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.