Jesus Prays for His Own Glorification
When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up toward heaven and prayed, "Father, the time has come. Give glory to your Son so that your Son can give glory to you. You have given him power over all people so that he can give eternal life to everyone you have given to him. And this is what eternal life means: that people know you, the only true God, and know Jesus Christ, the one you sent. I have brought you glory here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, give me glory in your presence—the same glory I had with you before the world was created."
Jesus Prays for His Disciples
I have made Your name known to the people You gave me from the world. They belonged to You first, and You gave them to me, and they have obeyed Your teaching. Now they understand that everything You have given me comes from You. I have passed on to them the very words You gave me, and they have accepted them. They know for certain that I came from You, and they believe that You sent me. I am praying for them now. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given me, because they belong to You. Everything I have is Yours, and everything You have is mine, and through them my glory has been shown. I will no longer be in the world, but they will remain in the world while I come to You. Holy Father, keep them safe through the power of Your name—the same name You gave me—so that they may be united just as we are united. While I was with them, I kept them safe and watched over them through the power of Your name that You gave me. None of them was lost except the one who was destined for destruction, so that the Scripture would come true. But now I am coming to You, and I speak these words while I am still in the world so that they can experience my complete joy within themselves. I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Make them holy through the truth—Your word is truth. Just as You sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. I make myself holy for their sake, so that they too may be made truly holy through the truth.
Jesus Prays for All Believers
Jesus continued his prayer, saying that he was not only praying for his disciples who were with him, but also for everyone who would come to believe in him because of their teaching. He asked that all these believers would be completely united as one people, just like the Father and Son are perfectly united together. He prayed that these believers would be so closely connected to both the Father and himself that the world would see this unity and believe that the Father had truly sent him. Jesus explained that he had given his followers the same glory that the Father had given him, so that they could experience the same kind of perfect oneness that exists between the Father and Son. With Jesus living in them and the Father living in Jesus, they would be completely unified together. When the world saw this perfect unity among his followers, they would know without doubt that the Father had sent Jesus and loved these believers with the exact same love he had for his own Son. Then Jesus made a personal request to his Father, asking that everyone the Father had given him would one day be with him in his eternal home, where they could see the full glory the Father had given him—glory that existed because of the Father's love for him since before the world was even created. Jesus addressed his Father as perfectly righteous and acknowledged that while the world had failed to know the Father, he himself knew the Father completely, and his followers knew that the Father had sent him. Jesus declared that he had revealed the Father's true character and name to them and would continue doing so, in order that the very same love the Father had for him would live inside his followers, and that he himself would live in them as well.