John 13 – 16

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

13 It was almost time for the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that it was time for him to leave this world and go back to the Father. He had always loved those who were his own in the world, and he loved them all the way to the end.

² Jesus and his followers were at the evening meal. The devil had already persuaded Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to turn against Jesus. ³ Jesus knew that the Father had given him power over everything and that he had come from God and was going back to God. ⁴ So during the meal Jesus stood up and took off his outer clothing. Taking a towel, he wrapped it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a bowl and began to wash the followers’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

⁶ Jesus came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

⁷ Jesus answered, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later.”

⁸ Peter said, “No, you will never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “If I don’t wash your feet, you are not one of my people.”

⁹ Simon Peter answered, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but wash my hands and my head, too!”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “After a person has had a bath, his whole body is clean. He needs only to wash his feet. And you men are clean, but not all of you.” ¹¹ Jesus knew who would turn against him, and that is why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and sat down again. He asked, “Do you understand what I have just done for you? ¹³ You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that is what I am. ¹⁴ If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash each other’s feet. ¹⁵ I did this as an example so that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, a servant is not greater than his master. A messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

¹⁸ “I am not talking about all of you. I know those I have chosen. But this is to bring about what the Scripture said: ‘The man who ate at my table has turned against me.’^{[a] 19} I am telling you this now before it happens so that when it happens, you will believe that I am he. ²⁰ I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send also accepts me. And whoever accepts me also accepts the One who sent me.”

Jesus Talks About His Death

²¹ After Jesus said this, he was very troubled. He said openly, “I tell you the truth, one of you will turn against me.”

²² The followers all looked at each other, because they did not know whom Jesus was talking about. ²³ One of the followers sitting^[b] next to Jesus was the follower Jesus loved. ²⁴ Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus whom he was talking about.

²⁵ That follower leaned closer to Jesus and asked, “Lord, who is it?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “I will dip this bread into the dish. The man I give it to is the man who will turn against me.” So Jesus took a piece of bread, dipped it, and gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. ²⁷ As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered him. Jesus said to him, “The thing that you will do—do it quickly.” ²⁸ No one at the table understood why Jesus said this to Judas. ²⁹ Since he was the one who kept the money box, some of the followers thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the feast or to give something to the poor.

³⁰ Judas took the bread Jesus gave him and immediately went out. It was night.

³¹ When Judas was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man receives his glory, and God receives glory through him. ³² If God receives glory through him,^[c] then God will give glory to the Son through himself. And God will give him glory quickly.”

³³ Jesus said, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and what I told the Jews, I tell you now: Where I am going you cannot come.

³⁴ “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. ³⁵ All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”

Peter Will Say He Doesn’t Know Jesus

³⁶ Simon Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

³⁷ Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I am ready to die for you!”

³⁸ Jesus answered, “Are you ready to die for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will say three times that you don’t know me.”

Jesus Comforts His Followers

14 Jesus said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. ² There are many rooms in my Father’s house; I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³ After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.”^[d]

⁵ Thomas said to Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. So how can we know the way?”

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me. ⁷ If you really knew me, you would know my Father, too. But now you do know him, and you have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need.”

⁹ Jesus answered, “I have been with you a long time now. Do you still not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. So why do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you don’t come from me, but the Father lives in me and does his own work. ¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or believe because of the miracles I have done. ¹² I tell you the truth, whoever believes in me will do the same things that I do. Those who believe will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And if you ask for anything in my name, I will do it for you so that the Father’s glory will be shown through the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will obey my commands. ¹⁶ I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper^[e] to be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you and he will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you all alone like orphans; I will come back to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live, too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and that you are in me and I am in you. ²¹ Those who know my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, and my Father will love those who love me. I will love them and will show myself to them.”

²² Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you plan to show yourself to us and not to the rest of the world?”

²³ Jesus answered, “If people love me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching. This teaching that you hear is not really mine; it is from my Father, who sent me.

²⁵ “I have told you all these things while I am with you. ²⁶ But the Helper will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.

²⁷ “I leave you peace; my peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world does. So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. ²⁸ You heard me say to you, ‘I am going, but I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you should be happy that I am going back to the Father, because he is greater than I am. ²⁹ I have told you this now, before it happens, so that when it happens, you will believe. ³⁰ I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, ³¹ but the world must know that I love the Father, so I do exactly what the Father told me to do.

“Come now, let us go.

Jesus Is Like a Vine

15 “I am the true vine; my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And he trims and cleans every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit. ³ You are already clean because of the words I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch cannot produce fruit alone but must remain in the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit alone but must remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If any remain in me and I remain in them, they produce much fruit. But without me they can do nothing. ⁶ If any do not remain in me, they are like a branch that is thrown away and then dies. People pick up dead branches, throw them into the fire, and burn them. ⁷ If you remain in me and follow my teachings, you can ask anything you want, and it will be given to you. ⁸ You should produce much fruit and show that you are my followers, which brings glory to my Father. ⁹ I loved you as the Father loved me. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ I have obeyed my Father’s commands, and I remain in his love. In the same way, if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. ¹¹ I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy.

¹² “This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose me; I chose you. And I gave you this work: to go and produce fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you anything you ask for in my name. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

Jesus Warns His Followers

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as it loves its own. But I have chosen you out of the world, so you don’t belong to it. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master. If people did wrong to me, they will do wrong to you, too. And if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours, too. ²¹ They will do all this to you on account of me, because they do not know the One who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴ I did works among them that no one else has ever done. If I had not done these works, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen what I have done, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this happened so that what is written in their law would be true: ‘They hated me for no reason.’^[f]

²⁶ “I will send you the Helper^[g] from the Father; he is the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father. When he comes, he will tell about me, ²⁷ and you also must tell people about me, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16 “I have told you these things to keep you from giving up. ² People will put you out of their synagogues. Yes, the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are offering service to God. ³ They will do this because they have not known the Father and they have not known me. ⁴ I have told you these things now so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

“I did not tell you these things at the beginning, because I was with you then. ⁵ Now I am going back to the One who sent me. But none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ Your hearts are filled with sadness because I have told you these things. ⁷ But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go away. When I go away, I will send the Helper^[h] to you. If I do not go away, the Helper will not come. ⁸ When the Helper comes, he will prove to the people of the world the truth about sin, about being right with God, and about judgment. ⁹ He will prove to them that sin is not believing in me. ¹⁰ He will prove to them that being right with God comes from my going to the Father and not being seen anymore. ¹¹ And the Helper will prove to them that judgment happened when the ruler of this world was judged.

¹² “I have many more things to say to you, but they are too much for you now. ¹³ But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all truth. He will not speak his own words, but he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come. ¹⁴ The Spirit of truth will bring glory to me, because he will take what I have to say and tell it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take what I have to say and tell it to you.

Sadness Will Become Happiness

¹⁶ “After a little while you will not see me, and then after a little while you will see me again.”

¹⁷ Some of the followers said to each other, “What does Jesus mean when he says, ‘After a little while you will not see me, and then after a little while you will see me again’? And what does he mean when he says, ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸ They also asked, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

¹⁹ Jesus saw that the followers wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking each other what I meant when I said, ‘After a little while you will not see me, and then after a little while you will see me again’? ²⁰ I tell you the truth, you will cry and be sad, but the world will be happy. You will be sad, but your sadness will become joy. ²¹ When a woman gives birth to a baby, she has pain, because her time has come. But when her baby is born, she forgets the pain, because she is so happy that a child has been born into the world. ²² It is the same with you. Now you are sad, but I will see you again and you will be happy, and no one will take away your joy. ²³ In that day you will not ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you anything you ask for in my name. ²⁴ Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy.

Victory over the World

²⁵ “I have told you these things indirectly in stories. But the time will come when I will not use stories like that to tell you things; I will speak to you in plain words about the Father. ²⁶ In that day you will ask the Father for things in my name. I mean, I will not need to ask the Father for you. ²⁷ The Father himself loves you. He loves you because you loved me and believed that I came from God. ²⁸ I came from the Father into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

²⁹ Then the followers of Jesus said, “You are speaking clearly to us now and are not using stories that are hard to understand. ³⁰ We can see now that you know all things. You can answer a person’s question even before it is asked. This makes us believe you came from God.”

³¹ Jesus answered, “So now you believe? ³² Listen to me; a time is coming when you will be scattered, each to your own home. That time is now here. You will leave me alone, but I am never really alone, because the Father is with me.

³³ “I told you these things so that you can have peace in me. In this world you will have trouble, but be brave! I have defeated the world.”