15Verse 1Jesus told his followers a picture story about a plant that grapes grow on. It is called a grape vine. Jesus said, “I am like a good grape vine, growing in a garden. And God, my father, is like the gardener.Verse 2And people are like the branches of that grape vine. There are some people that don’t live God’s way. They are like branches on the vine that don’t grow any fruit. They are no good, so the gardener cuts them off.Verse 3You are like those good branches. You believed my words, so you are already clean.Verse 4And, you know, a branch has to stay joined to the main trunk of the vine, so it can grow fruit. A broken branch lying on the ground can’t grow any fruit. The trunk and the branch have to stay joined together. Well, just like that, you have to stay joined to me, and I will stay joined to you. If you don’t stay joined to me, you can’t live God’s way.Verse 5So I tell you, I am like the main trunk of the grape vine, and you are like the branches. If you stay joined to me, I will stay joined to you, and you will keep on doing what God wants you to do. You see, if any branches don’t stay joined to the trunk of the vine, they can’t grow any fruit. Just like that, if you are not joined to me, you can’t do anything for God.Verse 6Some people might not stay joined to me. They will be like branches that the gardener cuts off and throws away. They lie on the ground and dry up, and later on, he will pick them up and throw them into a fire, and it will burn them up.Verse 7But, if you stay joined to me, and keep on doing what I taught you, you can ask me for anything, and I will do it.Verse 8And when you live God’s way, other people will see the good things that you do, and they will know that you are my followers, so they will respect my father. You will be like a branch that grows a lot of fruit.Verse 9I loved you just as much as my father loves me. So listen, you have to stay joined to me, and I will keep on loving you.Verse 10I always do what my father wants me to do, and he keeps on loving me. In the same way, if you keep on doing what I told you to do, I will keep on loving you.Verse 11I told you all these things now, so that you can be properly happy. Yes, you can be as happy as me.Verse 12Yes, and I am telling you this, you have to love each other, just like I loved you.Verse 13If somebody is ready to die to save their friends, that shows that they really love their friends a lot.Verse 14Well, if you do what I tell you to do, you are my friends. I love my friends a lot, and I am ready to die to save you.Verse 15I’m not calling you my workers any more, but I’m calling you my friends. Workers don’t know what their boss is doing, but I told you everything that my father told me. So now you know what I am doing.Verse 16You didn’t pick me, but I picked you. And I am sending you out to do my work. I want you to be like branches that grow the sort of fruit that stays good for ever. Then you can ask God for anything that I say is good, and he will give it to you.Verse 17Listen, I’m telling you again what you have to do, you have to love each other.”
The world’s people hate Jesus’s followers
Verse 18Jesus kept on talking to his followers. He said, “Listen. When the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first.Verse 19The people that belong to this world don’t live God’s way. And they only love other people that belong to this world. But you are not like them, so they don’t love you. You see, I picked you out from the people of this world, and now you are different, so they hate you.Verse 20Remember that I told you before, ‘A worker is not more important than their boss.’ Well, I am your boss, and you are my workers. And people made a lot of trouble for me, so people will make a lot of trouble for you. But some people listened properly to me, so some people will listen properly to you too.Verse 21You are my followers, that’s the reason why some people will make trouble for you. You see, they don’t know God. He is the one that sent me here.Verse 22I came and talked to them, but they didn’t listen to me. So they are going against God, and he will say they are guilty. And they can’t argue with him. They can’t say they didn’t hear my message.Verse 23You see, if anyone hates me, they hate my father too.Verse 24And that mob saw me do powerful things, but they took no notice of me, so they are guilty of going against God. I did those powerful things that nobody else ever did, and they saw what I did, but they still hate me, and they hate my father too. So they are really guilty.Verse 25A long time ago, God told one of his men to write about this, and they have it in God’s book. He wrote,‘I didn’t do anything bad to them, but they hated me anyway.’And that mob are doing that to me now.Verse 26Listen, I am going back to my father, and then I will send you a helper. He is the Holy Spirit. He will come to you from the father, and everything he says is always true. He will tell you all about me.Verse 27And you mob will talk about me too. You were with me from the time I started teaching, so you have to tell everyone about me.”