Here's another installment in my Greek translation adventures. One interesting thing about translating is that the translator gets to decide where to put the periods and paragraph breaks. This is true with my translation as well. The translator tries to follow the flow of the author's thought and then translate it accordingly.
Also, I tried something a bit different this time. I've linked sentences or phrases where I was unsure of a good translation to the NASB rendering of the verse or sentence. I didn't use an English translation as a guide at all on this chapter, so some sections are undoubtedly a little rough (hopefully not heretical!).
One final comment: my classmates and I have joked about how a literal translation makes it sound as if Yoda from Star Wars was doing the talking. While this is kind of funny, I actually find it to be helpful in my translation process. The order in which words are placed in a sentence does not matter in the Greek language (at least to some extent), so a literal English translation usually sounds like Yoda (see this post for more on the Yoda-speak).
JOHN 15
“I myself am the true vine and the Father of me is the vinedresser. Every branch in me not bearing fruit, he removes it, and every fruit that is bearing, he prunes it in order that more fruit it may bear. Already clean, you are, through the word which I have spoken to you. You abide in me and I in you. Even as the branch is not able to bear fruit of itself when it does not dwell in the vine, so neither you, when not in me you are dwelling. I myself am the vine, you are the branches. The one who dwells in me and I in him, this one bears much fruit, since apart from me you are not able to do anything. If anyone does not abide in me he is cast outside, as the branch is withered and they are gathered and in the fire are thrown and are burned. If you dwell in me and the words of me in you abide, whatever you want, you will ask, and it will be done to you. In this is glorified the Father of me, in order that fruit – much you will bear – and you will become my disciples. As you loved the Father of me, and I you loved, abide in the love of me. If the commandments of me you are keeping, you will abide in the love of me, as I the Father’s commandments have kept and I abide in him in his love.
“These things I spoke to you in order that joy in you is, and the joy of you may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I loved you. Greater than this love no one has, that someone, the life of him he lay down in behalf of the friends of him. You are the friends of me if you do that which I command you to. No longer I say you are servants, since the servant does not know what he is doing – the master. But you I have called friends, because all things which I heard about the Father of me I made known to you.
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and I appointed you in order that you should go and bear fruit, and the fruit of you may remain, that anything you may ask the Father in the name of me he may give to you. These things I am commanding to you, in order that you love one another.
“If the world is hating you, you know that me first of you it has hated. If out of the world you were, the world would love its own, but since out of the world you are not, I chose you from the world. On account of this the world hates you.
“Remember the word that I myself said to you: a servant is not greater than the master of him. If me they persecuted, also you they will persecute. If the word of me they kept, also yours they will keep. But all these things they will do to you on account of the name of me, because they do not know the one who sent me. If not I came and spoke to them, sin not they have. But now an excuse not they have about the sins of them. The one who hates me, also the Father of me he hates. If the works not I did in them which no one else has done, sin not they have. But now they have seen and have hated both me and the Father of me. But in order that the word may be fulfilled in the law of them that is written that they have hated me without cause.
“When comes the helper whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth from the Father proceeds. That one will testify about me. And you also testify, because from the beginning with me you are.”
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