“I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he takes it away, and every branch that produces fruit, he prunes it so that it can produce more fruit.
Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
Live in union with me, and I will live in union with you. As the branch is not able to produce fruit by itself unless it lives in union with the vine, so neither can you, unless you live in union with me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who lives in union with me, and I in him, that is the one who will bear much fruit, because apart from me you are not able to do anything.
If anyone does not live in union with me, he is thrown away like a branch, and withers; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
If you live in union with me, and my words live in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified: that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
“Just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you: live in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will live in my love; just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in his love.
I have spoken these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this—that one would lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do the things that I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his lord is doing. But I have called you friends because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and produce fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
These things I command you so that you will love one another.
The Hatred of the World
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would befriend you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
But all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know the one who sent me.
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin, but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.
But let the word that is written in their law be fulfilled, They hated me without a cause.
“But when the helper comes that I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth that comes from the Father, it will testify about me,
and you also must testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.