15:1 “I am the true vine and my Father is the cultivator.

15:2 He discards every branch that produces no fruit, but prunes the ones that produce some, so they can make even more.

15:3 You all are pruned already by means of the things I’ve said to you.

15:4 Remain in me as I remain in you. Just as the branch cannot produce fruit if it is detached from the vine, neither can you if you do not remain in me.

15:5 “I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them produces a lot of fruit, but apart from me you can do nothing.

15:6 Whoever does not remain in me is like a branch that is thrown out and dried up. Such branches are then collected and thrown into the fire to be burned.

15:7 But if you always remain in me and my declarations remain in you, ask for anything you want and it will be granted to you.

15:8 “If you produce a lot of fruit and become my disciples, it brings honor to my Father.

15:9 Just as the Father loves me, so also do I love you; remain in my love.

15:10 If you guard my precepts you will remain in my love, just as I have guarded my Father’s precepts and remain in his love.

15:11 I have spoken these things to you so that my happiness will remain in you and fill you up.

15:12 “This is my precept: that you love each other as I have loved you.

15:13 And there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

15:14 You are my friends if you do what I direct you to do.

15:15 I no longer call you slaves, for a slave is not included in their master’s activities. But now I call you friends, for I have shared with you everything I heard from my Father.

15:16 You didn’t choose me, I chose you, and I appointed you to go out and produce a lot of fruit. If your fruit endures, ask the Father for anything you want as my representatives and he will grant it.

15:17 I am giving you these directions so that you may love each other.

15:18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first.

15:19 If you had belonged to the world it would have considered you its friends. But seeing that you are no longer part of the world since I chose you out of it, the world despises you for this.

15:20 Remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me they will also persecute you, but if they guarded my sayings, they will guard yours too.

15:21 They will do all these things to you because of my name, since they have failed to recognize the one sending me.

15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them they would not be at fault, but now they have no excuse;

15:23 whoever despises me despises my Father as well.

15:24 If I hadn’t done things among them that no one else had done, they would not be at fault. But now they have seen, and they have despised both me and my Father.

15:25 Yet this fulfills what has been written in the law about them: ‘They hated me for no reason’.

15:26 “When the Advocate I’m sending from the Father arrives— the Spirit of Truth departing from him— he will testify about me.

15:27 And you will testify as well, seeing that you have been with me from the beginning.