John 15:13-27

13 No one has greater love than this--a man laying down his life for his friends.

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

15 No 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 that I have heard from the Father I have made known to you.

16 It is not you who chose me, but it is I who chose you and appointed you that you might go and be fruitful and that your fruit might remain; so that whatever petition you present to the Father in my name He may give you.

17 "Thus I command you to love one another.

18 If the world hates you, remember that it has first had me as the fixed object of its hatred.

19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own property. But because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world--for that reason the world hates you.

20 Bear in mind what I said to you, `A servant is not superior to his master.' If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

21 But they will inflict all this suffering upon you on account of your bearing my name--because they do not know Him who sent me.

22 "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have had no sin; but as the case stands they are without excuse for their sin.

23 He who hates me hates my Father also.

24 If I had not done among them, as I have, such miracles as no one else ever did, they would have had no sin; but they have in fact seen and also hated both me and my Father.

25 But this has been so, in order that the saying may be fulfilled which stands written in their Law, `They have hated me without any reason.'

26 "When the Advocate is come whom I will send to you from the Father's presence--the Spirit of Truth who comes forth from the Father's presence--He will be a witness concerning me.

27 And you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the first.