The New Testament

The New Testament › John

John 17

1After saying these things, Jesus lifted his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you, 2just as you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he might give eternal life to all you have given him. 3And this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. 4I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5Now, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory I had alongside you before the world existed.

6“I revealed your name to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, 8because I have given them the words you gave me. They received them and truly knew that I came from you, and believed that you sent me. 9I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me, because they are yours. 10All that is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. 11I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, so that they may be one, just as we are. 12While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me, and guarded them. Not one of them perished except the son of destruction, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13But now I am coming to you, and I say these things in the world so that they may have my joy made full in themselves. 14I have given them your word, and the world hated them, because they are not from the world, just as I am not from the world. 15I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16They are not from the world, just as I am not from the world. 17Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. 18Just as you sent me into the world, I too sent them into the world. 19And for their sake I consecrate myself, so that they too may be consecrated in truth.

20“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, 21so that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you. May they too be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. 22The glory you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, just as we are one: 23I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them just as you loved me. 24Father, as for what you have given me, I want them to be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25Righteous Father, the world did not know you, but I knew you, and these knew that you sent me. 26I made your name known to them and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Translation notes 1

17:2, 11–12, 15–19, 24 — Flesh, name, destruction, and consecration. “All flesh” is a collective expression for humanity. “Your name, which you have given me” follows the base rather than the variant referring to people given to Jesus. “Son of destruction” is a characterization of Judas associated with his ruin, not literal parentage; it also echoes the verb “perished.” “The evil one” can grammatically be “evil.” “Consecrate” means dedicate to God; Jesus' consecrating himself does not imply purification from personal sin. Verse 24 preserves the move from the collective “what” to the people described as “them.”