1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

2He cuts off every one of my branches that doesn't bear fruit. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so it can bear even more.

3You are already pruned and made clean ⁹³through what I've told you.

4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. ⁹⁴Just as a branch cannot produce fruit unless it remains part of the vine, so it is for you: you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5I'm the vine, you're the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce plenty of fruit—for apart from me you can't do anything.

6Anyone who doesn't remain in me is like a branch that is thrown out and dries up. Such branches are gathered together, thrown into the fire and burned.

7If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you can ask for whatever you want, and it will be given you.

8My Father is glorified as you produce plenty of fruit, proving you are my disciples.

9As the Father loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.

10If you do what I say, you will remain in my love, just as I do what my Father says and remain in his love.

11I've explained this to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

12This is my command: love one another as I have loved you.

13There is no greater love than to give your life for your friends.

14You're my friends if you do what I tell you.

15I don't call you servants any longer, for servants are not taken into their master's confidence. ⁹⁵I call you friends, for everything my Father told me I've explained to you.

16You didn't choose me, I chose you. I have given you the responsibility to go and produce lasting fruit. So the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

17This is my command to you: love one another.

18If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before it hated you.

19If you were part of this world, it would love you as its own. But you're not part of the world, and I chose you out of the world—that's why the world hates you.

20Remember what I told you: servants aren't more important than their master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. If they did what I told them, they would do what you tell them too.

21But everything they do to you will be because of me, for they don't know the one who sent me.

22If I hadn't come and spoken to them, they wouldn't be guilty of sin—but now they have no excuse for their sin.

23Anyone who hates me hates my Father as well.

24If I had not given them such a demonstration through things that no one had ever done before, they wouldn't be guilty of sin, but despite seeing all this they hated both me and my Father.

25But this just fulfilled what Scripture says, ‘They hated me for no reason at all.’ ⁹⁶

26But I will send you the Comforter from the Father. When he comes, he will give evidence about me. He is the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father.

27You will also give evidence about me because you were with me from the beginning.”