I AM the True Vine

1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

2Every branch in Me which does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch which bears fruit He prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.

3You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

4Abide in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit on its own, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

5I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; because apart from Me you can do nothing.

6If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

7If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask whatever you may desire, and it shall be done for you.

8By this My Father is glorified, that you may bear much fruit; and you will become My disciples.

9“Just as the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

10If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and I abide in His love.

11“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may abide in you, and that your joy may be full.

12This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

13Greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.

14You are My friends if you do what I command you.

15No longer do I call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things which I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

16You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you may ask the Father in My name He may give to you.

17These things I command you, that you may love one another.

The World's Hatred

18“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

19If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

20Remember the word which I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

21But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

23He who hates Me hates My Father also.

24If I had not done the works among them which no one else has done, they would have no sin; but now they have both seen and they have hated both Me and My Father.

25But this was so that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

26“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.

27And you also will testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning.