Who is God the Father?

¹“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.

²In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.

³If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.

⁴Where I go, you know, and you know the way.”

⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

⁷If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him.”

⁸Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

⁹Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’

¹⁰Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works.

¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

¹²Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.

¹³Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

¹⁴If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.

⁵“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.

⁶But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

⁷In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.

⁸Therefore don’t be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.

⁹Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

¹⁰Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

¹¹Give us today our daily bread.

¹²Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

¹³Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. ’

¹⁴“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

¹⁵But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

¹¹He said, “A certain man had two sons.

¹²The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of your property.’ He divided his livelihood between them.

¹³Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living.

¹⁴When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need.

¹⁵He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

¹⁶He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.

¹⁷But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger!

¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight.

¹⁹I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”’

²⁰“He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

²¹The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²²“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.

²³Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate;

²⁴for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ They began to celebrate.

¹See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.

²Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.

³Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure.