John 15:17-16:2

¹⁷ “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. ¹⁸ If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹ But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates me, hates my Father also. ²⁴ If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ ²⁶ “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. ²⁷ You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. ¹ “I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. ² They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Romans 8:28-39

²⁸ We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. ³¹ What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? ³³ Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷ No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.