because I know that the removal of my bodily tent is to be very soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

because you recognize this truth above all else, that no prophecy in Scripture is to be interpreted by one's own mind,

for no prophecy has ever yet originated in man's will, but men who were led by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Now there were false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you too, who will insidiously introduce destructive heresies and deny the Master who has bought them, thus bringing on themselves swift destruction.

and if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others when He brought the flood upon the world of godless people;

whereas angels who are far superior in strength and power to these beings bring no abusive accusation against them before the Lord.

In accordance with His promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth, in which uprightness will have its permanent home.

but instead, you must continue to grow in the spiritual strength and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever!

and that life has been unveiled to us, and we have seen it and now testify to it and we now announce it to you, yea, the eternal life that was with the Father and has been unveiled to us.

I repeat, it is what we have seen and heard that we now announce to you, so that you too may share this fellowship with us, for this fellowship that we have is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ;

and now we write these things to you to make our joy complete.

And this is the message that we have heard from Him and now announce to you: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him.

By this we can be sure that we know Him -- if we practice obedience to His commands.

Whoever says, "I know Him," but does not practice obedience to His commands is a liar, and there is no truth in his heart;

Dearly beloved, I am not writing you a new command, but an old one that you have had from the beginning. That old command is the message that you have heard.

Yet it is a new command that I am writing you; it is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Whoever continues to love his brother is always in the light, and he is no hindrance to others.

But whoever continues to hate his brother is in darkness and is living in darkness, and he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one. I write to you, little children, because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and God's message is always in your hearts, and you have conquered the evil one.

Stop loving the world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, there is no love for the Father in his heart,

But you have been anointed by the Holy One. You all know the truth;

I do not write to you because you do not know it, but because you do know it.

No one who disowns the Son can have the Father. Whoever owns the Son has the Father too.

The anointing of the Spirit which you received still remains in your hearts, and so you have no need that anyone should teach you. But just as that anointing of His teaches you about everything, and as it is true and no falsehood, and as it has taught you to do so, you must continue to live in union with Him.

And now, dear children, I repeat, you must continue to live in union with Him, so that if He is unveiled, we may have unshaken confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame when He comes.

If you know that He is upright, you must know that everyone who practices uprightness is born of Him.

See what wonderful love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called God's children, and that is what we are! This is why the world does not know what we are, because it has never come to know Him.

Dearly beloved, we are now God's children, but what we are going to be has not been unveiled. We know that if it is unveiled, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

You know that He appeared to take our sins away, and that there is no sin in Him.

No one who continues to live in union with Him practices sin. No one who practices sin has ever seen Him or come to know Him.

No one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, because the God-given life-principle continues to live in him, and so he cannot practice sinning, because he is born of God.

This is the way to distinguish God's children from the devil's children. No one who fails to do right is God's child, and no one who fails to love his brother.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love our brothers. Whoever does not continue to love continues still in death.

Anyone who keeps on hating his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer can have eternal life remaining in him.

We know what love is from the fact that He laid down His life for us; and so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

In this way we shall know by experience that we are on the side of the truth, and satisfy our consciences in God's sight,

Whoever practices obedience to His commands remains in union with Him and He in union with him; and in this way we know that He remains in union with us, by the Spirit that He has given us.

and no spiritual utterance which disowns Jesus can come from God; it is the utterance of Antichrist. You have heard that it is coming, and right now it is already in the world.

Whoever does not love has never come to know God by experience, because God is love.

No one has ever seen God; yet if we practice loving one another, God remains in union with us, and our love for Him attains perfection in our hearts,

We have seen and now testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.

So we know by experience and trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love continues in union with God and God in union with him.

There is no fear in love, and perfect love drives out fear, because fear pertains to punishment, and no one who is subject to fear has attained perfection in love.

Now who is it that continues to conquer the world, if it is not the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

I have written this to you who believe in the person of the Son of God, so that you may know that you already have eternal life.

And if we know that He listens to us in whatever we ask Him for, we know that we get from Him the things that we have asked Him for.

We know that no one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, but the Son who was born of God continues to keep him, and the evil one cannot touch him.

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one.

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us insight to recognize the True One; and we are in union with the True One through His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

The Elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I truly love, and not only I but all who know the truth,

And now I beg you, my lady, not as though I were writing you a new command, but one which we had from the beginning, that we continue to love one another.

Now love means this, that we keep on living in accordance with His commands. The command is this, that we continue to live in love.

No one has God, who goes too far and fails to stay by the teaching of Christ. Whoever stays by this teaching has the Father and the Son.

I have no greater spiritual blessing than this, to hear that my children are living by the truth.

Demetrius has a good testimony from everybody and from truth itself; yea, from me too, and you know that my testimony to him is true.

Now I want to remind you, though you know it all already, that although the Lord had saved a people out of the land of Egypt, He afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

But these persons abuse everything they do not understand, and they are going to be destroyed by the very things they know by instinct, like the irrational animals.

They are blots on your love feasts while they feast with you, daringly caring for no one but themselves; rainless clouds swept along by winds; leafless trees that bear no fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in His glorious presence faultless and full of triumphant joy,

to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, as it was before all time, both now and forever and ever. Amen.

yea, the ever-living One. I once was dead, but now I live forever and ever. I carry the keys of death and the underworld.

"I know what you have done; your hard work and patient endurance; that you cannot tolerate wicked persons; that you have tested those who claimed to be apostles although they were not, and have found them to be imposters,

"I know your pressing trouble and poverty, but still you are rich; I know how you are abused by those who claim to be Jews although they are not, but are only a synagogue of Satan.

"I know where you live, where Satan has his throne. Yet you are clinging to my name and have never renounced your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful martyred witness, who was put to death among you, right where Satan lives,

Let everyone who has ears listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. I will give to him who conquers some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on it which no one knows except the man who receives it."'"

"I know what you are doing, I know your love and faithfulness, your service and patient endurance, and I know that you are now working harder than you did at first.

and I will surely strike her children dead. So all the churches will know that I am He who searches men's inmost hearts, and that I will repay each of you for exactly what you have done.

But to the rest of you at Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching and have not learned the 'deep things' of Satan -- as they speak of them -- to you I say, I have no extra burden to lay on you,

"To the messenger of the church at Sardis write: 'The One who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars speaks as follows: "I know what you are doing; you have the reputation of being alive, but in reality you are dead.

So remember what you have received and heard, and continue to obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will never know the hour when I come upon you.

"To the messenger of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The Holy and True One, who carries the keys of David, who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open, speaks as follows:

"I know what you are doing. See! I have put before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have but little strength, and yet you have obeyed my message and you have not disowned my name.

I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one may take away your crown.

I will make him who conquers a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall never again go out of it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name.

"I know what you are doing, and that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot.

Because you say, 'I am rich, I have already become rich, I need nothing,' and you do not know that you are the very one that is wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked;

I am now standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will be his guest and feast with him, and he with me.

But no one in heaven or on earth or underneath the earth could open the book or look into it.

Then I began to weep bitterly because no one could be found deserving to open the book or look into it.

Then they sang a new song: "You deserve to take the book and break its seals, because you have been slaughtered, and with your blood have bought men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation,

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind should blow on the earth, the sea, or any tree.

After this I looked, and there was a vast throng that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

I answered him, "You know, my lord." He said to me: "These are the people who are coming through the great persecution, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Then the fourth angel blew his trumpet, and one-third of the sun was cursed with a plague, and one-third of the moon, and one-third of the stars, so that one-third of them were darkened, and there was no light for one-third of the day and for one-third of the night.

and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and all that they contain, the earth and all that it contains, and the sea and all that it contains, that there should be no more delay,

They have the power to shut up the sky, so that no rain will fall upon the earth as long as they prophesy, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with any plague as often as they please.

The heathen were enraged, but now your anger has come, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for you to reward your slaves the prophets and your people, great and small, who revere your name, and to destroy the destroyers of the earth."

but they were defeated, and there was no room for them in heaven any longer.

and he permits no one to buy or sell anything unless he bears the mark; that is, the name of the wild beast or the number that represents the name.

They were singing a new song before the throne, the four living creatures, and the elders, and no one could learn the song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth.

The smoke of their torture will go up forever and ever, and they will have no rest day or night -- those who worship the wild beast and his statue, and anyone who bears the mark of his name."

Who will not fear and glorify your name, O Lord? For you alone are holy. All the nations will come and worship you, because the justice of your sentences has now been shown."

(15:7) and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory and power of God, and no one could go into the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were at an end.

The wild beast that you saw, once was but now is no more; he is going to come up out of the abyss, but he is going to be destroyed. The inhabitants of the earth, whose names from the foundation of the world have not been written in the book of life, will be astonished when they see that the wild beast once was but now is no more, and yet is to come.

So it is with the wild beast that once was but is no more; he is the eighth, and yet is one of the seven, and he is going to be destroyed.

The businessmen of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because no one can buy their cargoes anymore --

The sound of harpists, musicians, flute-players, and trumpeters will never be heard in you again. No craftsmen of any kind will ever be found in you again, and the sound of the grinding mill will never be heard in you again;

Then I heard something like the shout of a great multitude and the roar of many waters and the peal of mighty thunders, saying: "Praise the Lord! For the Lord, our Almighty God, has now begun to reign!

His eyes were like coals of fire. On His head were many diadems, and on Him a name was written which no one knew but Himself.