Chronological

The way, the truth, the life

14 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus continued. “Trust God—and trust me, too! ² There is plenty of room to stay in my father’s house. If that wasn’t the case, I’d have told you, wouldn’t I? I’m going to get a place ready for you! ³ And if I do go and get a place ready for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you can be there, where I am. ⁴ And as to where I’m going—you know the way!”

⁵ “Actually, Master,” said Thomas to him, “we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way?”

⁶ “I am the way,” replied Jesus, “and the truth and the life! Nobody comes to the father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my father. From now on you do know him! You have seen him.”

⁸ “Just show us the father, then, Master,” said Philip to Jesus, “and that’ll be good enough for us!”

⁹ “Have I been with you for such a long time, Philip,” replied Jesus, “and still you don’t know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the father! How can you say, ‘Show us the father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the father, and the father is in me? The words I’m speaking to you, I’m not speaking on my own initiative. It’s the father, who lives within me, who is doing his own works. ¹¹ You must trust me that I am in the father and the father is in me. If not, then trust because of all the things you’ve seen done.”

Another helper

¹² “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus continued. “Anyone who trusts in me will also do the works that I’m doing. In fact, they will do greater works than these, because I’m going to the father! ¹³ And whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the father may be glorified in the son. ¹⁴ If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

¹⁵ “If you love me,” he went on, “you will keep my commands. ¹⁶ Then I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This other helper is the spirit of truth. The world can’t receive him, because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you, and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I’m not going to leave you bereft. I am coming to you. ¹⁹ Not long from now, the world won’t see me anymore; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

²¹ “Anyone who has my commandments and keeps them—that’s the person who loves me. Anyone who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and show myself to them.”

My peace I give to you

²² Judas spoke up. (This was the other Judas, not Iscariot.)

“Master,” he said, “how will it be that you will show yourself to us and not to the world?”

²³ “If anyone loves me,” Jesus replied, “they will keep my word. My father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Anyone who doesn’t love me won’t keep my word. And the word which you hear isn’t mine. It comes from the father, who sent me.

²⁵ “I’ve said all this to you while I’m here with you. ²⁶ But the helper, the holy spirit, the one the father will send in my name, he will teach you everything. He will bring back to your mind everything I’ve said to you.

²⁷ “I’m leaving you peace. I’m giving you my own peace. I don’t give gifts in the way the world does. Don’t let your hearts be troubled; don’t be fearful. ²⁸ You heard that I said to you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be happy that I’m going to the father—because the father is greater than me. ²⁹ And now I’ve told you before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may believe.

³⁰ “I haven’t got much more to say to you. The ruler of the world is coming. He has nothing to do with me. ³¹ But all this is happening so that the world may know that I love the father, and that I’m doing what the father has told me to do.

“Get up. Let’s be going.”

The true vine

15 “I am the true vine,” said Jesus, “and my father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t bear fruit; and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it can bear more fruit. ³ You are already clean. That’s because of the word that I’ve spoken to you.

⁴ “Remain in me, and I will remain in you! The branch can’t bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains in the vine. In the same way, you can’t bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches. People who remain in me, and I in them, are the ones who bear plenty of fruit. Without me, you see, you can’t do anything.

⁶ “If people don’t remain in me, they are thrown out, like a branch, and they wither. People collect the branches and put them on the fire, and they are burned. ⁷ If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want, and it will happen for you. ⁸ My father is glorified in this: that you bear plenty of fruit, and so become my disciples.”

Obeying and loving

⁹ “As the father loved me,” Jesus continued, “so I loved you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commands, and remain in his love. ¹¹ I’ve said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and so that your joy may be full.

¹² “This is my command: love one another, in the same way that I loved you. ¹³ No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do what I tell you. ¹⁵ I’m not calling you ‘servants’ any longer; servants don’t know what their master is doing. But I’ve called you ‘friends,’ because I’ve let you know everything I heard from my father.

¹⁶ “You didn’t choose me. I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ This is my command to you: love one another.”

If the world hates you

¹⁸ “If the world hates you,” Jesus went on, “know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from the world. No: I chose you out of the world.

²⁰ “Remember the word that I said to you: servants are not greater than their masters. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. If they kept my word, they will keep yours too. ²¹ But they will do all these things to you because of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me.

²² “If I hadn’t come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ (Anyone who hates me, hates my father as well!) ²⁴ If I hadn’t done, there in the middle of them, the works which nobody else did, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. But now they have seen me, and my father—and they’ve hated us both! ²⁵ All this has happened, however, so that the word written in their law might be fulfilled: ‘They hated me for no reason.’

²⁶ “When the helper comes—the one I shall send you from the father, the spirit of truth who comes from the father—he will give evidence about me. ²⁷ And you will give evidence as well, because you have been with me from the start.”

The spirit and the world

16 “I’ve said these things to you,” Jesus went on, “to stop you from being tripped up. ² They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will suppose that they are thereby offering worship to God. ³ They will do these things because they haven’t known the father, or me. ⁴ But I have been talking to you about these things so that, when their time comes, you will remember that I told you about them.

“I didn’t say these things to you from the start, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I’m going to the one who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ But because I’ve said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. ⁷ However, it’s the truth that I’m telling you: it’s better for you that I should go away. If I don’t go away, you see, the helper won’t come to you. But if I go away, I will send him to you.

⁸ “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong on three counts: sin, justice and judgment. ⁹ In relation to sin—because they don’t believe in me. ¹⁰ In relation to justice—because I’m going to the father, and you won’t see me anymore. ¹¹ In relation to judgment—because the ruler of this world is judged.”

Your hearts will rejoice

¹² “There are many things I still have to say to you,” Jesus continued, “but you’re not yet strong enough to take them. ¹³ When the spirit of truth comes, though, he will guide you in all the truth. He won’t speak on his own account, you see, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will announce to you what’s to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take what belongs to me and will announce it to you. ¹⁵ Everything that the father has is mine. That’s why I said that he would take what is mine and announce it to you.

¹⁶ “Not long from now, you won’t see me anymore. Then again, not long after that, you will see me!”

¹⁷ “What’s he talking about?” some of his disciples asked each other. “What’s this business about ‘not long from now, you won’t see me, and again not long after that you will see me’? And what’s this about ‘going to the father’?”

¹⁸ They kept on saying it.

“What is this ‘not long’?”

“What’s it all about?”

“We don’t know what he means!”

¹⁹ Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him.

“You’re discussing with each other what I meant, aren’t you?” he said. “You want to know what I meant by saying, ‘Not long from now, you won’t see me; and then again, not long after that, you will see me.’ That’s it, isn’t it? ²⁰ Well, I’m going to tell you the solemn truth.

“You will weep and wail, but the world will celebrate. You will be overcome with sorrow, but your sorrow will turn into joy. ²¹ When a woman is giving birth she is in anguish, because her moment has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering, because of the joy that a human being has been born into the world. ²² In the same way, you have sorrow now. But I shall see you again, and your hearts will celebrate, and nobody will take your joy away from you.”

Ask, and you will receive

²³ “On that day,” Jesus went on, “you won’t ask me for anything. I’m telling you the solemn truth: whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give you. ²⁴ Up to now, you haven’t asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be full!

²⁵ “I’ve been saying all this to you in picture-language. The time is coming when I won’t speak in pictures anymore. Instead, I’ll tell you about the father quite plainly. ²⁶ On that day you will ask in my name. I won’t say I will ask the father on your behalf, ²⁷ because the father himself loves you! That’s because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God. ²⁸ I came from the father, and I’ve come into the world. Now I’m leaving the world, and going back to the father.”

²⁹ “Ah!” said his disciples. “Now you’re speaking plainly! You’re not talking in pictures. ³⁰ Now we know that you know all things, and you don’t need to have anybody ask you anything. This makes us trust that you came from God.”

³¹ “So you do now believe, do you?” replied Jesus. ³² “Look here: the time is coming (in fact, it’s now arrived!) when you will be scattered, each of you to his own place. You will leave me alone—though I’m not alone, because the father is with me. ³³ I’ve said these things to you so that you can have peace in me. You’ll have trouble in the world. But cheer up! I have defeated the world!”

Glorify the son

17 After Jesus had said this, he lifted up his eyes to heaven.

“Father,” he said, “the moment has come. Glorify your son, so that your son may glorify you. ² Do this in the same way as you did when you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he could give the life of God’s coming age to everyone you gave him. ³ And by ‘the life of God’s coming age’ I mean this: that they should know you, the only true God, and Jesus the Messiah, the one you sent.

⁴ “I glorified you on earth, by completing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ So now, Father, glorify me, alongside yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.

⁶ “I revealed your name to the people you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you; you gave them to me; and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything which you gave me comes from you. ⁸ I have given them the words you gave me, and they have received them. They have come to know, in truth, that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.”

Jesus prays for his people

⁹ “I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for the people you’ve given me. They belong to you. ¹⁰ All mine are yours; all yours are mine; and I’m glorified in them.

¹¹ “I’m not in the world any longer, but they’re still in the world; I’m coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name you’ve given to me, so that they may be one, just as we are one.

¹² “When I was with them, I kept them in your name, the name you’ve given me. I guarded them, and none of them has been destroyed (except the son of destruction; that’s what the Bible said would happen). ¹³ But now I’m coming to you. I’m speaking these things in the world, so that they can have my joy fulfilled in them.

¹⁴ “I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not from the world, just as I am not from the world. ¹⁵ I’m not asking that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They didn’t come from the world, just as I didn’t come from the world. ¹⁷ Set them apart for yourself in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And on their account I set myself apart for you, so that they, too, may be set apart for you in the truth.”

That they may be one

²⁰ “I’m not praying simply for them. I’m praying, too, for the people who will come to believe in me because of their word. ²¹ I am praying that they may all be one—just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they too may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.

²² “I have given them the glory which you have given to me, so that they may be one, just as we are one. ²³ I in them, and you in me; yes, they must be completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them just as you loved me.

²⁴ “Father, I want the ones you’ve given me to be with me where I am. I want them to see my glory, the glory which you’ve given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

²⁵ “Righteous Father, even the world didn’t know you. But I have known you, and these ones have known that you sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them—yes, and I will make it known; so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”