Today's gospel reading comes from the middle of Jesus' so-called "Farewell Discourse," a lengthy section running from chapters 14 to chapter 17. Within these chapters, there is considerable repetition and parallelism, suggesting that multiple traditions may have been preserved and presented by the gospel author.

The most telling evidence for this lies in the conclusion to Jesus' remarks in 14:30-31, an "ending" that appears scrambled in the middle of these chapters, hence Moffatt's "re-orderings" of this Discourse into 13:1-30a; 15:1-27; 16:1-33; 13:30b-38; 14:1-31; 17:1-26.

Most recent scholarship, however, is much more inclined to conclude that John had access to two different accounts of Jesus' final discourse to his disciples. Unwilling to omit one or judge one version superior to the …