The Life of Jesus

“What I am leaving with you is shalom — I am giving you my shalom. I don’t give the way the world gives. Don’t let yourselves be upset or frightened.

You heard me tell you, ‘I am leaving, and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would have been glad that I am going to the Father; because the Father is greater than I.

“Also, I have said it to you now, before it happens; so that when it does happen, you will trust.

“I won’t be talking with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me;

rather, this is happening so that the world may know that I love the Father, and that I do as the Father has commanded me. “Get up! Let’s get going!

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

Every branch which is part of me but fails to bear fruit, he cuts off; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.

Right now, because of the word which I have spoken to you, you are pruned.

Stay united with me, as I will with you — for just as the branch can’t put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can’t bear fruit apart from me.

“I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can’t do a thing.

Unless a person remains united with me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, where they are burned up.

“If you remain united with me, and my words with you, then ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you.

This is how my Father is glorified — in your bearing much fruit; this is how you will prove to be my talmidim.

“Just as my Father has loved me, I too have loved you; so stay in my love.

If you keep my commands, you will stay in my love — just as I have kept my Father’s commands and stay in his love.

I have said this to you so that my joy may be in you, and your joy be complete.

“This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than a person who lays down his life for his friends.

You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you.

This is what I command you: keep loving each other!

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world — on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world — therefore the world hates you.

Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they kept my word, they will keep yours too.