John 15:12-22

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

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

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

15 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.

16 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.

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

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

19 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.

20 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.

21 But they will do all this to you on my account, because they don't know the One who sent me.

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