Jesus’ Prayer for His Followers

1-5 Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said:

Father, it’s time.

Display the bright splendor of your Son

So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.

You put him in charge of everything human

So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.

And this is the real and eternal life:

That they know you,

The one and only true God,

And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.

I glorified you on earth

By completing down to the last detail

What you assigned me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor,

The very splendor I had in your presence

Before there was a world.

6-12 I spelled out your character in detail

To the men and women you gave me.

They were yours in the first place;

Then you gave them to me,

And they have now done what you said.

They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt,

That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,

For the message you gave me, I gave them;

And they took it, and were convinced

That I came from you.

They believed that you sent me.

I pray for them.

I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world

But for those you gave me,

For they are yours by right.

Everything mine is yours, and yours mine,

And my life is on display in them.

For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world;

They’ll continue in the world

While I return to you.

Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life

That you conferred as a gift through me,

So they can be one heart and mind

As we are one heart and mind.

As long as I was with them, I guarded them

In the pursuit of the life you gave through me;

I even posted a night watch.

And not one of them got away,

Except for the rebel bent on destruction

(the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).

13-19 Now I’m returning to you.

I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing

So my people can experience

My joy completed in them.

I gave them your word;

The godless world hated them because of it,

Because they didn’t join the world’s ways,

Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways.

I’m not asking that you take them out of the world

But that you guard them from the Evil One.

They are no more defined by the world

Than I am defined by the world.

Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth;

Your word is consecrating truth.

In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world,

I give them a mission in the world.

I’m consecrating myself for their sakes

So they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission.

20-23 I’m praying not only for them

But also for those who will believe in me

Because of them and their witness about me.

The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—

Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,

So they might be one heart and mind with us.

Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.

The same glory you gave me, I gave them,

So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—

I in them and you in me.

Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,

And give the godless world evidence

That you’ve sent me and loved them

In the same way you’ve loved me.

24-26 Father, I want those you gave me

To be with me, right where I am,

So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me,

Having loved me

Long before there ever was a world.

Righteous Father, the world has never known you,

But I have known you, and these disciples know

That you sent me on this mission.

I have made your very being known to them—

Who you are and what you do—

And continue to make it known,

So that your love for me

Might be in them

Exactly as I am in them.

—https://d1b84921e69nmq.cloudfront.net/85/32k/JHN/17-2276d327460a472deae7212e309cd38d.mp3?version_id=97—