John 17:12

While I was with them, I protected and preserved them by Your name, the name You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus is praying to the Father in the upper room, the night before his arrest, reviewing what he did for the disciples during his earthly ministry.

The words — ἐγὼ (egō), "I myself," is the emphatic first-person pronoun, stressing that the protection was his personal act, not a generic divine function. κόσμῳ (kosmō), "world," marks the boundary: his preserving power operated only while he was physically present in it.

The thread — Jesus repeats the same claim in John 18:9 ("I have not lost one of those You have given Me"), and the "son of destruction" likely points to Psalm 109:6, where a wicked man and accuser are set over the psalmist's enemy.

Why it lands — The verse forces a distinction: one disciple was not lost by accident but by design, fulfilling Scripture. A reader must hold both truths at once — that Jesus' protection was real and total for those given to him, and that the exclusion of Judas was not a failure of that protection.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

While 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.

Cross-references

Psalms 109:6 Set over him a wicked man; let an accuser stand at his right hand.
John 10:27 My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.
John 18:9 This was to fulfill the word He had spoken: “I have not lost one of those You have given Me.”
John 13:18 I am not speaking about all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the Scripture: ‘The one who shares My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’
Acts 1:16 “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit foretold through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus.
John 6:37 Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never drive away.
John 6:70 Jesus answered them, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!”
John 6:39 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day.
Acts 1:25 to take up this ministry and apostleship, which Judas abandoned to go to his rightful place.”
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us.