Part 25

015:013 No one has greater love than this--a man laying down his life for his friends.

015:014 You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

015:015 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.

015:016 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.

015:017 "Thus I command you to love one another.

015:018 If the world hates you, remember that it has first had me as the fixed object of its hatred.

015:019 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.

015:020 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.

015:021 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.

015:022 "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.

015:023 He who hates me hates my Father also.

015:024 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.

015:025 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.'

015:026 "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.

015:027 And you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the first.

016:001 "These things I have spoken to you in order to clear stumbling-blocks out of your path.

016:002 You will be excluded from the synagogues; nay more, the time is coming when any one who has murdered one of you will suppose he is offering service to God.

016:003 And they will do these things because they have failed to recognize the Father and to discover who I am.

016:004 But I have spoken these things to you in order that when the time for their accomplishment comes you may remember them, and may recollect that I told you. I did not, however, tell you all this at first, because I was still with you.

016:005 But now I an returning to Him who sent me; and not one of you asks me where I am going.

016:006 But grief has filled your hearts because I have said all this to you.

016:007 "Yet it is the truth that I am telling you--it is to your advantage that I go away. For unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

016:008 And He, when He comes, will convict the world in respect of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement;--

016:009 of sin, because they do not believe in me;

016:010 of righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you will no longer see me;

016:011 of judgement, because the Prince of this world is under sentence.

016:012 "I have much more to say to you, but you are unable at present to bear the burden of it.

016:013 But when He has come--the Spirit of Truth--He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak as Himself originating what He says, but all that He hears He will speak, and He will make known the future to you.