Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

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.”