New Testament · Gospel

John 17

Jesus Prays

You get to overhear Jesus praying to the Father. He prays for His disciples — and then He prays for you.

King James Version BSB KJV

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1These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

6I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

7Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

8For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

20Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

24Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

25O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Understand This

John 17, explained

What John 17 is saying

Jesus' High Priestly Prayer—the longest recorded prayer in the Gospels—intercedes first for himself (glorification through the completed work), then for his disciples (protection, sanctification, and unity), and finally for all future believers (that they may be one as Father and Son are one). The prayer's climax is Jesus' desire that believers behold his pre-creational glory and that the Father's love for the Son dwell in them.

The background behind it

This prayer functions as the theological climax of the Farewell Discourse and the hinge between Jesus' ministry and his passion. The high-priestly language echoes the Day of Atonement, when Israel's high priest interceded for the people in the Holy of Holies. Jesus prays as both priest and sacrifice. The petition for unity has been central to ecumenical theology since the patristic period.

Themes running underneath

The prayer reveals the trinitarian relations as the model and source of Christian community: believers are drawn into the love between Father and Son. Sanctification ('make them holy in the truth') is corporate, not merely individual. Jesus' definition of eternal life—'to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent'—is relational rather than temporal. The repeated emphasis on the world as the context (not escape destination) of discipleship challenges otherworldly spirituality.

Why it still matters

Christian unity is not organizational uniformity but participation in the divine love between Father and Son—a unity that serves as the world's primary evidence for Christ's mission. Jesus' prayer for his followers' sanctification in truth anchors spiritual formation in Scripture and honest engagement with reality.

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Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.