John 17King James Version
The high priestly prayer. Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven and prays for himself, then for his disciples, then for all who will believe through their word. This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.
Jesus prays aloud in the longest prayer recorded in any gospel. He prays for his own glorification, for the disciples to be kept safe and sanctified in truth, and for all future believers to be one as he and the Father are one. The prayer's heart is unity, not survival. Every reader who hears it is included in its scope.
On the night before his death, what Jesus prays for is not rescue but unity, the same unity he shares with the Father, extended through his followers into the world.
3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Eternal life redefined not as duration but as relationship, a knowing that begins now.
The setting is still the upper room or somewhere nearby, before Gethsemane. Jesus is speaking aloud to the Father while the disciples listen. It is not a private prayer; it is a public intercession that includes future generations. Scholars note the prayer's elevated, liturgical cadence, suggesting it was composed to be remembered and repeated. The community that first heard it was already living in the reality of being prayed for in this text.
Jesus, the one praying; the Father, the one addressed; the eleven disciples, prayed for by name and by description; all future believers, included explicitly in the scope of the prayer.
This prayer has been called the High Priestly Prayer because it functions like an intercession before Jesus enters his passion the way a high priest would enter the Holy of Holies. John places it here so readers experience Jesus praying for them, in real time, before anything else happens. The unity theme has fueled ecumenical movements and has been cited in nearly every major Christian statement on church unity for two thousand years.
For when you feel prayed over or prayed for and you need to know what that actually means. The prayer is specific. Jesus names the things he wants for the people who follow him: protection, joy, truth, and belonging to the same relationship he has with the Father.
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.