13 Even before the actual feast part of the Passover celebrations, Yeshua knew that his time had come—the time when he would leave this world and return to the father. He loved his followers who were in the world right through to the end.

2 And now it was getting near time for the dinner and the devil had already put into Yudas Iscariot’s mind the idea of handing Yeshua over to the authorities. 3 Yeshua knew that the father had given everything to him, putting it under his control, and he knew that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the dinner table, changed out of his clothes, and wrapped a linen towel around himself. 5 Then he put water into the wash bowl and started washing the feet of his apprentices, wiping them dry with the linen towel that was he was wearing wrapped around him. 6 After he’d washed a few, he got to Simon Peter who asked him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 “What I’m doing now,” Yeshua answered, “you won’t really understand, but in the future you will.”

8 Peter responded, “Well I’m never ever going to let you wash my feet!”

“If I don’t wash them,” Yeshua answered, “then you won’t be included in my group.”

9 “Well, if that’s so,” Peter said, “don’t just wash my feet but my hands and my head as well.”

10 Yeshua responded, “Any person who’s already washed themselves only needs to wash their feet now to be clean. And so you’re clean, but not every one of you.” 11 He said this last bit because he already knew who was going to hand him over.

12 [ref]So when he’d finished washing their feet, he got dressed again and sat down and asked, “Do you know what I just did to you all? 13 You call me teacher and master, and so you should, because I am. 14 So if the master and teacher of you all washed your feet, then you also ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given this to you all as an example that you can also do to others. 16 [ref]I can assure you that a slave isn’t greater than his master, and an missionary isn’t greater than the king who sends him. 17 If you can figure all this out and then do it, you will be blessed by God.

18 [ref]“But I’m not talking about all of you. I know each one that I chose, but this that was written in the scriptures must be fulfilled,

‘The one sharing food with me, lifted up his boot against me.’

19 So I’m telling you now before it happens so that when it does happen, then you’ll all believe that I am the messiah. 20 [ref]I can assure you all that anyone who accepts any person that I might send, they’re accepting me, and anyone who accepts me, is accepting the one who sent me.”