The Living Bible (338 page)

John
15

“I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Gardener.
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He lops off every branch that doesn’t produce. And he prunes those branches that bear fruit for even larger crops.
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He has already tended you by pruning you back for greater strength and usefulness by means of the commands I gave you.
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Take care to live in me, and let me live in you. For a branch can’t produce fruit when severed from the vine. Nor can you be fruitful apart from me.

    
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“Yes, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit. For apart from me you can’t do a thing.
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If anyone separates from me, he is thrown away like a useless branch, withers, and is gathered into a pile with all the others and burned.
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But if you stay in me and obey my commands, you may ask any request you like, and it will be granted!
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My true disciples produce bountiful harvests. This brings great glory to my Father.

    
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“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Live within my love.
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When you obey me you are living in my love, just as I obey my Father and live in his love.
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I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your cup of joy will overflow!
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I demand that you love each other as much as I love you.
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And here is how to measure it—the greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends;
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and you are my friends if you obey me.
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I no longer call you slaves, for a master doesn’t confide in his slaves; now you are my friends, proved by the fact that I have told you everything the Father told me.

    
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“You didn’t choose me! I chose you! I appointed you to go and produce lovely fruit always, so that no matter what you ask for from the Father, using my name, he will give it to you.
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I demand that you love each other,
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for you get enough hate from the world! But then, it hated me before it hated you.
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The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t—for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you.
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Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave isn’t greater than his master!’ So since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you!
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The people of the world will persecute you because you belong to me, for they don’t know God who sent me.

    
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“They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
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Anyone hating me is also hating my Father.
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If I hadn’t done such mighty miracles among them they would not be counted guilty. But as it is, they saw these miracles and yet they hated both of us—me and my Father.
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This has fulfilled what the prophets said concerning the Messiah, ‘They hated me without reason.’

    
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“But I will send you the Comforter—the Holy Spirit, the source of all truth. He will come to you from the Father and will tell you all about me.
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And you also must tell everyone about me because you have been with me from the beginning.

John
16

“I have told you these things so that you won’t be staggered by all that lies ahead.
*
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For you will be excommunicated from the synagogues, and indeed the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing God a service.
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This is because they have never known the Father or me.
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Yes, I’m telling you these things now so that when they happen you will remember I warned you. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.

    
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“But now I am going away to the one who sent me; and none of you seems interested in the purpose of my going; none wonders why.
*
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Instead you are only filled with sorrow.
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But the fact of the matter is that it is best for you that I go away, for if I don’t, the Comforter won’t come. If I do, he will—for I will send him to you.

    
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“And when he has come he will convince the world of its sin, and of the availability of God’s goodness, and of deliverance from judgment.
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The world’s sin is unbelief in me;
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there is righteousness available because I go to the Father and you shall see me no more;
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there is deliverance from judgment because the prince of this world has already been judged.

    
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“Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t understand it now.
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When the Holy Spirit, who is truth, comes, he shall guide you into all truth, for he will not be presenting his own ideas, but will be passing on to you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.
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He shall praise me and bring me great honor by showing you my glory.
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All the Father’s glory is mine; this is what I mean when I say that he will show you my glory.

    
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“In just a little while I will be gone, and you will see me no more; but just a little while after that, and you will see me again!”

    
^17-18
 “Whatever is he saying?” some of his disciples asked. “What is this about ‘going to the Father’? We don’t know what he means.”

    
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 Jesus realized they wanted to ask him so he said,
“Are you asking yourselves what I mean?
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The world will greatly rejoice over what is going to happen to me, and you will weep. But your weeping shall suddenly be turned to wonderful joy when you see me again.
*
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It will be the same joy as that of a woman in labor when her child is born—her anguish gives place to rapturous joy and the pain is forgotten.
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You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and then you will rejoice; and no one can rob you of that joy.
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At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything, for you can go directly to the Father and ask him, and he will give you what you ask for because you use my name.
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You haven’t tried this before, but begin now.
*
Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and your cup of joy will overflow.

    
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“I have spoken of these matters very guardedly, but the time will come when this will not be necessary and I will tell you plainly all about the Father.
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Then you will present your petitions over my signature!
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And I won’t need to ask the Father to grant you these requests,
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for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from the Father.
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Yes, I came from the Father into the world and will leave the world and return to the Father.”

    
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 “At last you are speaking plainly,” his disciples said, “and not in riddles.
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 Now we understand that you know everything and don’t need anyone to tell you anything.
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From this we believe that you came from God.”

    
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“Do you finally believe this?”
Jesus asked.
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“But the time is coming—in fact, it is here—when you will be scattered, each one returning to his own home, leaving me alone. Yet I will not be alone, for the Father is with me.
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I have told you all this so that you will have peace of heart and mind. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows; but cheer up, for I have overcome the world.”

John
17

When Jesus had finished saying all these things he looked up to heaven and said,
“Father, the time has come. Reveal the glory of your Son so that he can give the glory back to you.
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For you have given him authority over every man and woman in all the earth. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him.
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And this is the way to have eternal life—by knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth!
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I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to.
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And now, Father, reveal my glory as I stand in your presence, the glory we shared before the world began.

    
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“I have told these men all about you. They were in the world, but then you gave them to me. Actually, they were always yours, and you gave them to me; and they have obeyed you.
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Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you,
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for I have passed on to them the commands you gave me; and they accepted them and know of a certainty that I came down to earth from you, and they believe you sent me.

    
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“My plea is not for the world but for those you have given me because they belong to you.
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And all of them, since they are mine, belong to you; and you have given them back to me with everything else of yours, and so
they are my glory!
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Now I am leaving the world, and leaving them behind, and coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your own care—all those you have given me—so that they will be united just as we are, with none missing.
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During my time here I have kept safe within your family all of these you gave me.
*
I guarded them so that not one perished, except the son of hell, as the Scriptures foretold.

    
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“And now I am coming to you. I have told them many things while I was with them so that they would be filled with my joy.
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I have given them your commands. And the world hates them because they don’t fit in with it, just as I don’t.
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I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from Satan’s power.
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They are not part of this world any more than I am.
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Make them pure and holy through teaching them your words of truth.
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As you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world,
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and I consecrate myself to meet their need for growth in truth and holiness.

    
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“I am not praying for these alone but also for the future believers who will come to me because of the testimony of these.
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My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.

    
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“I have given them the glory you gave me—the glorious unity of being one, as we are—
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I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one—so that the world will know you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me.
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Father, I want them with me—these you’ve given me—so that they can see my glory. You gave me the glory because you loved me before the world began!

    
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“O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me.
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And I have revealed you to them and will keep on revealing you so that the mighty love you have for me may be in them, and I in them.”