Good News According to John [ a translation from the Greek ] Chapter 15 "I am the true vine and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes away. And everyone bearing fruit, he prunes it, that it might bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. "Remain in me and I in you. As the branch isn't able to bear fruit of itself if it doesn't remain in the vine, thus neither can you if you don't remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them bear much fruit; for apart from me, you aren't able to do anything. "If anyone doesn't remain in me, they are thrown out like the branch and are dried up. And they gather and cast them into the fire and it is burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you and if you will ask whatever you will, it will happen. "In this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and you will become to me followers. Exactly according, as the father loved me, I also loved you; remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love. "These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than that one should lay down their life for their friends. "You are my friends if you practice whatever I command you. I no longer call you bond slaves, for the bond slave doesn't know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because all things that I heard from my father, I made known to you. "You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and should bear much fruit and your fruit should remain. So that whatever you might ask the father in my name, he might give you. "These things I command you, that you love each other. If people hate you, know that before you, it hated me. If you were of the world system, the world system would fondly delight in its own. But because you aren't of the world system, but I chose you out of the world, on account of this people hate you. [Here, Jesus might be referring to the world system of evil, as personified in Revelation 17 and as found in I John 2:15: "Don't love the world system nor the things in the world system." Because the Greek root "kosmos" has three biblical meanings, "world", "world system" and "the people" or "people", as in "humanity", it is not entirely clear sometimes which applies. Suffice it to say, the world system of evil is against Jesus and his teaching. And while some people reject and hate Jesus and his teaching, not all do.] "Remember the word that I said to you, a bond slave isn't greater than their master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, yours they will also keep. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they haven't known him who sent me. "If I hadn't come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Those who hate me also hate my father. "If I hadn't done the works among them that none other has done they wouldn't have had sin, but now they have both seen and both hated me and my father. But that the word might be fulfilled that has been written in their law, that 'they hated me without cause.' "But when the counselor has come whom I will send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who goes forth from the father, he will bear witness about me. Moreover, you also bear witness, because you've been with me from the beginning. open copyright; may be reproduced and distributed as desired