The chapter
Simply He warns them that they will be put out of the synagogues and that people will kill them thinking they are serving God. He says it is better for them that he goes, because otherwise the helper will not come. He tells them their grief will turn into joy, like a woman after childbirth. They say they finally understand him, and he answers that they are all about to scatter and leave him alone.
Context The chapter is built on a phrase they cannot understand, a little while, which they repeat back to each other three times at verses 17 and 18 before admitting they do not know what he is saying. He does not define it. Instead he gives them an image of a woman in labour, which explains the shape of the thing rather than its length. The end of the chapter is the sharpest exchange in the discourse: they say they believe, and he asks whether they do, then tells them the hour of their scattering has already come.
Verses 1-15
Simply He says he has told them these things so they will not be caught off guard: they will be expelled from the synagogues, and a time is coming when killing them will look like an offering to God. He says his going is to their advantage, because the helper comes only if he leaves. That helper will show the world where it is wrong about sin, about being right, and about judgment, and will guide them into all truth, speaking not on his own.
Context Verse 2 is the bleakest prediction in the discourse and it is precise about the mechanism: the killing is expected to come from people who believe they are doing right, not from people who know they are not. Verse 4 explains why this warning arrives now and not earlier, which is one of the few times this Gospel gives a reason for its own timing. Verse 13 sets a limit on the helper in the same sentence that gives him authority: he will not speak from himself, which is the same thing said of Jesus at 12:49.
Verses 16-24
Simply He says that in a little while they will not see him, and in a little while they will. The disciples cannot work out what he means and say so to each other. He does not explain the phrase, but tells them they will weep while the world is glad, and that their sorrow will turn into joy: a woman in labour is in pain until the child is born, and then does not remember it. He tells them to start asking in his name.
Context The disciples' confusion is quoted at length rather than summarised, which is unusual: verses 17 and 18 give their exact words twice over, and the text lets them be lost for two whole verses before he speaks. The image at verse 21 does not promise that the pain is small. It promises that it ends and that what follows displaces it, which is a different claim and a harder one. Verse 24 says that until now they have asked nothing in his name, which dates the change to this evening.
Verses 25-33
Simply He says he has been speaking in figures and that the time is coming when he will speak plainly about the Father. The disciples say that now he is speaking plainly, that they know he knows everything, and that this is why they believe. He asks whether they believe now, and tells them the hour has come when they will scatter to their own homes and leave him alone, though he is not alone. Then he tells them to take heart.
Context The disciples announce that they understand at exactly the moment they are about to fail, and the text puts the two verses next to each other without comment. His reply at verse 31 is a question, not a correction, and the file leaves it a question. Verse 32 corrects itself mid-sentence: they will leave him alone, and he is not alone. The discourse that began at 13:31 ends on the word trouble and the word overcome in the same breath, and nothing between here and the arrest changes either.