Bible Reading Plan – Day 356

₂₁After Jesus had said this, he was deeply troubled and declared openly, “I am telling you the truth: one of you is going to betray me.”

₂₂The disciples looked at one another, completely puzzled about whom he meant. ₂₃One of the disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was sitting next to Jesus. ₂₄Simon Peter motioned to him and said, “Ask him whom he is talking about.”

₂₅So that disciple moved closer to Jesus' side and asked, “Who is it, Lord?”

₂₆Jesus answered, “I will dip some bread in the sauce and give it to him; he is the man.” So he took a piece of bread, dipped it, and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. ₂₇As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered him. Jesus said to him, “Be quick about what you are doing!” ₂₈None of the others at the table understood why Jesus said this to him. ₂₉Since Judas was in charge of the money bag, some of the disciples thought that Jesus had told him to go and buy what they needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor.

₃₀Judas accepted the bread and went out at once. It was night.

₃₁After Judas had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man's glory is revealed; now God's glory is revealed through him. ₃₂And if God's glory is revealed through him, then God will reveal the glory of the Son of Man in himself, and he will do so at once. ₃₃My children, I shall not be with you very much longer. You will look for me; but I tell you now what I told the Jewish authorities, ‘You cannot go where I am going.’ ₃₄And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ₃₅If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

₃₆“Where are you going, Lord?” Simon Peter asked him.

“You cannot follow me now where I am going,” answered Jesus; “but later you will follow me.”

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

₃₈Jesus answered, “Are you really ready to die for me? I am telling you the truth: before the cock crows you will say three times that you do not know me.

₁“Do not be worried and upset,” Jesus told them. “Believe in God and believe also in me. ₂There are many rooms in my Father's house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so. ₃And after I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to myself, so that you will be where I am. ₄You know the way that leads to the place where I am going.”

₅Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; so how can we know the way to get there?”

₆Jesus answered him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me. ₇Now that you have known me,” he said to them, “you will know my Father also, and from now on you do know him and you have seen him.”

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

₉Jesus answered, “For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Why, then, do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ₁₀Do you not believe, Philip, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I have spoken to you,” Jesus said to his disciples, “do not come from me. The Father, who remains in me, does his own work. ₁₁Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do. ₁₂I am telling you the truth: those who believe in me will do what I do — yes, they will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father. ₁₃And I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son. ₁₄If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.

₁₅“If you love me, you will obey my commandments. ₁₆I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you for ever. ₁₇He is the Spirit who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and is in you.

₁₈“When I go, you will not be left all alone; I will come back to you. ₁₉In a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live. ₂₀When that day comes, you will know that I am in my Father and that you are in me, just as I am in you.

₂₁“Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. My Father will love those who love me; I too will love them and reveal myself to them.”

₂₂Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “Lord, how can it be that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”

₂₃Jesus answered him, “Whoever loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and my Father and I will come to him and live with him. ₂₄Whoever does not love me does not obey my teaching. And the teaching you have heard is not mine, but comes from the Father, who sent me.

₂₅“I have told you this while I am still with you. ₂₆The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.

₂₇“Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid. ₂₈You heard me say to you, ‘I am leaving, but I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father; for he is greater than I. ₂₉I have told you this now before it all happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe. ₃₀I cannot talk with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, ₃₁but the world must know that I love the Father; that is why I do everything as he commands me.

“Come, let us go from this place.

₁“I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. ₂He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit. ₃You have been made clean already by the teaching I have given you. ₄Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains in the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me.

₅“I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me. ₆Whoever does not remain in me is thrown out like a branch and dries up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burnt. ₇If you remain in me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it. ₈My Father's glory is shown by your bearing much fruit; and in this way you become my disciples. ₉I love you just as the Father loves me; remain in my love. ₁₀If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

₁₁“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ₁₂My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. ₁₃The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them. ₁₄And you are my friends if you do what I command you. ₁₅I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. ₁₆You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. ₁₇This, then, is what I command you: love one another.

₁₈“If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first. ₁₉If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you. ₂₀Remember what I told you: ‘Slaves are not greater than their master.’ If people persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours too. ₂₁But they will do all this to you because you are mine; for they do not know the one who sent me. ₂₂They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not come and spoken to them; as it is, they no longer have any excuse for their sin. ₂₃Whoever hates me hates my Father also. ₂₄They would not have been guilty of sin if I had not done among them the things that no one else ever did; as it is, they have seen what I did, and they hate both me and my Father. ₂₅This, however, was bound to happen so that what is written in their Law may come true: ‘They hated me for no reason at all.’

₂₆“The Helper will come — the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God and who comes from the Father. I will send him to you from the Father, and he will speak about me. ₂₇And you, too, will speak about me, because you have been with me from the very beginning.

₁“I have told you this, so that you will not give up your faith. ₂You will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time will come when anyone who kills you will think that by doing this he is serving God. ₃People will do these things to you because they have not known either the Father or me. ₄But I have told you this, so that when the time comes for them to do these things, you will remember that I told you.

“I did not tell you these things at the beginning, for I was with you. ₅But now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me where I am going. ₆And now that I have told you, your hearts are full of sadness. ₇But I am telling you the truth: it is better for you that I go away, because if I do not go, the Helper will not come to you. But if I do go away, then I will send him to you. ₈And when he comes, he will prove to the people of the world that they are wrong about sin and about what is right and about God's judgement. ₉They are wrong about sin, because they do not believe in me; ₁₀they are wrong about what is right, because I am going to the Father and you will not see me any more; ₁₁and they are wrong about judgement, because the ruler of this world has already been judged.

₁₂“I have much more to tell you, but now it would be too much for you to bear. ₁₃When, however, the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears, and will tell you of things to come. ₁₄He will give me glory, because he will take what I say and tell it to you. ₁₅All that my Father has is mine; that is why I said that the Spirit will take what I give him and tell it to you.

₁₆“In a little while you will not see me any more, and then a little while later you will see me.”

₁₇Some of his disciples asked among themselves, “What does this mean? He tells us that in a little while we will not see him, and then a little while later we will see him; and he also says, ‘It is because I am going to the Father.’ ₁₈What does this ‘a little while’ mean? We don't know what he is talking about!”

₁₉Jesus knew that they wanted to question him, so he said to them, “I said, ‘In a little while you will not see me, and then a little while later you will see me.’ Is this what you are asking about among yourselves? ₂₀I am telling you the truth: you will cry and weep, but the world will be glad; you will be sad, but your sadness will turn into gladness. ₂₁When a woman is about to give birth, she is sad because her hour of suffering has come; but when the baby is born, she forgets her suffering, because she is happy that a baby has been born into the world. ₂₂That is how it is with you: now you are sad, but I will see you again, and your hearts will be filled with gladness, the kind of gladness that no one can take away from you.

₂₃“When that day comes, you will not ask me for anything. I am telling you the truth: the Father will give you whatever you ask him for in my name. ₂₄Until now you have not asked for anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your happiness may be complete.

₂₅“I have used figures of speech to tell you these things. But the time will come when I will not use figures of speech, but will speak to you plainly about the Father. ₂₆When that day comes, you will ask him in my name; and I do not say that I will ask him on your behalf, ₂₇for the Father himself loves you. He loves you because you love me and have believed that I came from God. ₂₈I did come from the Father, and I came into the world; and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

₂₉Then his disciples said to him, “Now you are speaking plainly, without using figures of speech. ₃₀We know now that you know everything; you do not need someone to ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

₃₁Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now? ₃₂The time is coming, and is already here, when all of you will be scattered, each of you to your own home, and I will be left all alone. But I am not really alone, because the Father is with me. ₃₃I have told you this so that you will have peace by being united to me. The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!”