For he who shows no mercy will have judgement given against him without mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgement.

What good is it, my brethren, if a man professes to have faith, and yet his actions do not correspond? Can such faith save him?

Nay, some one will say, "You have faith, I have actions: prove to me your faith apart from corresponding actions and I will prove mine to you by my actions.

But if in your hearts you have bitter feelings of envy and rivalry, do not speak boastfully and falsely, in defiance of the truth.

You covet things and yet cannot get them; you commit murder; you have passionate desires and yet cannot gain your end; you begin to fight and make war. You have not, because you do not pray;

Your treasures have rotted, and your piles of clothing are moth-eaten;

your gold and your silver have become covered with rust, and the rust on them will give evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded up wealth in these last days.

I tell you that the pay of the labourers who have gathered in your crops--pay which you are keeping back--is calling out against you; and the outcries of those who have been your reapers have entered into the ears of the Lord of the armies of Heaven.

Here on earth you have lived self-indulgent and profligate lives. You have stupefied yourselves with gross feeding; but a day of slaughter has come.

You have condemned--you have murdered-- the righteous man: he offers no resistance.

In illustration, brethren, of persecution patiently endured take the Prophets who have spoken as messengers from the Lord.

Remember that we call those blessed who endured what they did. You have also heard of Job's patient endurance, and have seen the issue of the Lord's dealings with him--how full of tenderness and pity the Lord is.

Him you love, though your eyes have never looked on Him. In Him, though at present you cannot see Him, you nevertheless trust, and triumph with a joy which is unspeakable and is crowned with glory,

To them it was revealed that they were serving not themselves but you, when they foretold the very things which have now been openly declared to you by those who, having been taught by the Holy Spirit which had been sent from Heaven, brought you the Good News. Angels long to stoop and look into these things.

Now that, through your obedience to the truth, you have purified your souls for cherishing sincere brotherly love, you must love another heartily and fervently.

For you have been begotten again by God's ever-living and enduring word from a germ not of perishable, but of imperishable life.

if you have had any experience of the goodness of the Lord.

For it is contained in Scripture, "See, I am placing on Mount Zion a Cornerstone, chosen, and held in honour, and he whose faith rests on Him shall never have reason to feel ashamed."

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not found mercy, but now you have.

The burden of our sins He Himself carried in His own body to the Cross and bore it there, so that we, having died so far as our sins are concerned, may live righteous lives. By His wounds yours have been healed.

For you were straying like lost sheep, but now you have come back to the Shepherd and Protector of your souls.

Thus, for instance, Sarah obeyed Abraham, acknowledging his authority over her. And you have become Sarah's children if you do what is right and permit nothing whatever to terrify you.

not requiting evil with evil nor abuse with abuse, but, on the contrary, giving a blessing in return, because a blessing is what you have been called by God to inherit.

For you have given time enough in the past to the doing of the things which the Gentiles delight in-- pursuing, as you did, a course of habitual licence, debauchery, hard drinking, noisy revelry, drunkenness and unholy image-worship.

But they will have to give account to Him who stands ready to pronounce judgement on the living and the dead.

So I exhort the Elders among you--I who am their fellow Elder and have been an eye-witness of the sufferings of the Christ, and am also a sharer in the glory which is soon to be revealed.

And God, the giver of all grace, who has called you to share His eternal glory, through Christ, after you have suffered for a short time, will Himself make you perfect, firm, and strong.

I send this short letter by Silas, our faithful brother--for such I regard him--in order to encourage you, and to bear witness that what I have told you is the true grace of God. In it stand fast.

And in the written word of prophecy we have something more permanent; to which you do well to pay attention--as to a lamp shining in a dimly-lighted place--until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

But, above all, remember that no prophecy in Scripture will be found to have come from the prophet's own prompting;

And in their immoral ways they will have many eager disciples, through whom religion will be brought into disrepute.

Forsaking the straight road, they have gone astray, having eagerly followed in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was bent on securing the wages of unrighteousness.

For it would have been better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandments in which they were instructed.

and, asking, "What has become of His promised Return? For from the time our forefathers fell asleep all things continue as they have been ever since the creation of the world."

Therefore, dear friends, since you have these expectations, earnestly seek to be found in His presence, free from blemish or reproach, in peace.

That which was from the beginning, which we have listened to, which we have seen with our own eyes, and our own hands have handled concerning the Word of Life--

the Life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and we declare unto you the Life of the Ages which was with the Father and was manifested to us--

that which we have seen and listened to we now announce to you also, in order that you also may have fellowship in it with us, and this fellowship with us is fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This is the Message which we have heard from the Lord Jesus and now deliver to you--God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness.

If, while we are living in darkness, we profess to have fellowship with Him, we speak falsely and are not adhering to the truth.

But if we live in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we deny that we have sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Message has no place in our hearts.

Dear children, I write thus to you in order that you may not sin. If any one sins, we have an Advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ the righteous;

My dearly-loved friends, it is no new command that I am now giving you, but an old command which you have had from the very beginning. By the old command I mean the teaching which you have already received.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the very beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the Evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.

I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the very beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and God's Message still has a place in your hearts, and you have overcome the Evil one.

Dear children, the last hour has come; and as you once heard that there was to be an anti-Christ, so even now many anti-Christs have appeared. By this we may know that the last hour has come.

They have gone forth from our midst, but they did not really belong to us; for had they belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But they left us that it might be manifest that professed believers do not all belong to us.

As for you, you have an anointing from the holy One and have perfect knowledge.

I have written to you, not because you are ignorant of the truth, but because you know it, and you know that nothing false comes from the truth.

As for you, let the teaching which you have received from the very beginning continue in your hearts. If that teaching does continue in your hearts, you also will continue to be in union with the Son and with the Father.

I have thus written to you concerning those who are leading you astray.

And now, dear children, continue in union with Him; so that, if He re-appears, we may have perfect confidence, and may not shrink away in shame from His presence at His Coming.

For this is the Message you have heard from the beginning--that we are to love one another.

As for us, we know that we have already passed out of death into Life--because we love our brother men. He who is destitute of love continues dead.

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have perfect confidence towards God;

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but put the spirits to the test to see whether they are from God; for many false teachers have gone out into the world.

and that no spirit is from God which does not acknowledge this about Jesus. Such is the spirit of the anti-Christ; of whose coming you have heard, and it is already in the world.

As for you, dear children, you are God's children, and have successfully resisted them; for greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

God's love for us has been manifested in that He has sent His only Son into the world so that we may have Life through Him.

And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

And the command which we have from Him is that he who loves God must love his brother man also.

I write all this to you in order that you who believe in the Son of God may know for certain that you already have the Life of the Ages.

And we have an assured confidence that whenever we ask anything in accordance with His will, He listens to us.

And since we know that He listens to us, then whatever we ask, we know that we have the things which we have asked from Him.

It is an intense joy to me to have found some of your children living true Christian lives, in obedience to the command which we have received from the Father.

And now, dear lady, I pray you--writing to you, as I do, not a new command, but the one which we have had from the very beginning--let us love one another.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world--men who do not acknowledge Jesus as Christ who has come in human nature. Such a one is 'the deceiver' and 'the anti-Christ.'

I have a great deal to say to you all, but will not write it with paper and ink. Yet I hope to come to see you and speak face to face, so that your happiness may be complete.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are living in obedience to the truth.

They have testified, in the presence of the Church, to your love; and you will do well to help them on their journey in a manner worthy of your fellowship with God.

For it is for Christ that they have gone forth, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.

I wrote to the Church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the first place among them, refuses to listen to us.

I have a great deal to say to you, but I do not wish to go on writing it with ink and pen.

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed--men spoken of in ancient writings as pre-destined to this condemnation--ungodly men, who pervert the grace of our God into an excuse for immorality, and disown Jesus Christ, our only Sovereign and Lord.

Alas for them; for they have followed in the steps of Cain; for the sake of gain they have rushed on headlong in the evil ways of Balaam; and have perished in rebellion like that of Korah!

and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly deeds which in their ungodliness they have committed, and of all the hard words which they, ungodly sinners as they are, have spoken against Him."

I died; but I am now alive until the Ages of the Ages, and I have the keys of the gates of Death and of Hades!

Write down therefore the things you have just seen, and those which are now taking place, and those which are soon to follow:

the secret meaning of the seven stars which you have seen in My right hand, and of the seven lampstands of gold. The seven stars are the ministers of the seven Churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches.

I know your doings and your toil and patient suffering. And I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, but have put to the test those who say that they themselves are Apostles but are not, and you have found them to be liars.

And you endure patiently and have borne burdens for My sake and have never grown weary.

Yet I have this against you--that you no longer love Me as you did at first.

Be mindful, therefore, of the height from which you have fallen. Repent at once, and act as you did at first, or else I will surely come and remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent.

Yet this you have in your favor: you hate the doings of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

"'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. To him who overcomes I will give the privilege of eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is in the Paradise of God.'

Dismiss your fears concerning all that you are about to suffer. I tell you that the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be put to the test, and for ten days you will have to endure persecution. Be faithful to the End, even if you have to die, and then I will give you the victor's Wreath of Life.

"'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. He who overcomes shall be in no way hurt by the Second Death.'

Yet I have a few things against you, because you have with you some that cling to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block in the way of the descendants of Israel--to eat what had been sacrificed to idols, and commit fornication.

So even you have some that cling in the same way to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

"'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. He who overcomes--to him I will give some of the hidden Manna, and a white stone; and--written upon the stone and known only to him who receives it-- a new name.'

I know your doings, your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance; and that of late you have toiled harder than you did at first.

Yet I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and by her teaching leads astray My servants, so that they commit fornication and eat what has been sacrificed to idols.

I have given her time to repent, but she is determined not to repent of her fornication.

But to you, the rest of you in Thyateira, all who do not hold this teaching and are not the people who have learnt the "deep things," as they call them (the deep things of Satan!)

And he shall be their shepherd, ruling them with a rod of iron, just as earthenware jars are broken to pieces; and his power over them shall be like that which I Myself have received from My Father;

Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.'

Rouse yourself and keep awake, and strengthen those things which remain but have well-nigh perished; for I have found no doings of yours free from imperfection in the sight of My God.

Be mindful, therefore, of the lessons you have received and heard. Continually lay them to heart, and repent. If, however, you fail to rouse yourself and keep awake, I shall come upon you suddenly like a thief, and you will certainly not know the hour at which I shall come to judge you.

Yet you have in Sardis a few who have not soiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy.