but if anyone suffers for being a Christian, he must not be ashamed of it, but should keep on praising God for bearing this name.

be shepherds of the flock of God that is among you, not as though you had to but of your own free will, not from the motive of personal profit but freely,

and not as domineering over those in your charge but proving yourselves models for the flock to imitate;

For it was not mere stories of fancy that we followed when we told you of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of His majesty.

In their greed they will exploit you with messages manufactured by themselves. From of old their condemnation has not been idle and their destruction has not been slumbering.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but hurled them down to Tartarus and committed them to dark dungeons to await their doom,

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;

for as long as that upright man was living among them, his upright soul, day and night, was always being tortured by what he saw and heard in their lawless actions --

especially those who satisfy their lower nature by indulging in its evil passions which defile them, and who despise authority. Daring, headstrong men! They do not tremble when they abuse persons of majesty,

These men, like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct created to be caught and killed, abuse the things that they do not understand, and so by their corruption they will be destroyed, suffering wrong as punishment for their wrongdoing.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, in the sense in which some think of slowness, but He is really dealing patiently with you, because He is not willing for any to perish but for all to have an opportunity to repent?

If we say "We have fellowship with Him," and yet live in darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth.

If we claim "We are already free from sin," we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in our hearts.

If we claim "We have not sinned," we are making Him a liar, and His message is not in our hearts.

My dear children, I am writing you this so that you may not sin; yet if anyone ever sins, we have One who pleads our case with the Father, Jesus Christ, One who is righteous.

And He is Himself the atoning sacrifice for our sins; and not for ours alone, but also for the whole world.

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.

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.

because everything that is in the world, the things that our lower nature and eyes are longing for, and the proud pretensions of life, do not come from the Father, but from the world;

They have gone out from our own number, but they did not really belong to us; for if they had, they would have stayed with us. It was to show that none of those who went out really belonged to us.

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

Who is the notorious liar, if it is not the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is the real Antichrist, the man who disowns the Father and the Son.

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.

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.

We must not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and butchered his brother. And why did he butcher him? Because his own actions were wicked and his brother's upright.

You must not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.

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.

But if anyone has the world's means of supporting life and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how can love to God remain in him?

Dearly beloved, if our consciences do not condemn us, we come with perfect confidence to God,

We are children of God. Whoever knows God by experience listens to us; whoever is not a child of God does not listen to us. This is the way to distinguish a true spiritual utterance from one that is false.

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

In this way is seen the true love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

If anyone says, "I love God," and yet habitually hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

For love to God means this, to practice obedience to His commands, and His commands are not burdensome,

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?

He is the One who came through water and blood -- Jesus Christ; not through water only but through water and blood. The Spirit also testifies to this, because the Spirit is truth.

Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his own heart. Whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has borne to His Son.

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he will ask and God will grant him life; yea, He will grant it to any who do not commit a sin that leads to death. There is a sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.

Any wrongdoing is sin; and there are sins that do not lead to death.

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.

For many impostors have gone out into the world, men who do not own that Jesus Christ continues to come in human form. A person like this is the impostor and the Antichrist.

Look out for yourselves, so as not to lose what we have worked for, but so as to get your full reward.

Though I have much to write you, I do not choose to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face, so that your happiness may be complete,

So, if I come, I will remind you of what he is doing, how with malicious insinuations he is talking about me. Not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers himself, he interferes with those who want to do so, and tries to put them out of the church.

Dearly beloved, do not follow bad examples but good ones. Whoever practices doing right is God's child; whoever practices doing wrong has never seen God.

I have much to say to you, but I do not want to write it with pen and ink.

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.

And angels, who did not preserve their original rank but left their proper home, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness, for the day of judgment,

But the archangel Michael himself, when he disputed and argued with the devil about Moses' body, did not dare to bring against him a charge of blasphemy, but merely said, "May the Lord rebuke you!"

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.

So when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. But He laid His right hand upon me and said: "Do not be afraid any more. I am the First and the Last;

"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,

You are showing patient endurance, and you have borne it for my sake, and have not grown weary.

But I hold it against you that you do not love me as you did at first.

So remember the heights from which you have fallen, and repent and do as you did at first, or else I will surely come and move your lampstand from its place -- if you do not repent.

"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.

Do not be so afraid of what you are to suffer. See! The devil is going to throw some of you into prison to be tested there and for ten days to suffer pressing troubles. Each one of you must prove to be faithful, even if you have to die, and I will give you the crown of life.

Let everyone who has ears listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be hurt at all by the second death."'"

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,

Wake up, and strengthen what is left, although it is on the very point of dying, for I have not found a thing that you have done complete in the sight of God.

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.

Yet you have in Sardis a few who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me in white, for they deserve to do so.

"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 will make some, who claim to be Jews although they are not, but are lying -- I will make them come and fall at your feet and find out that I have loved you.

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;

And the four living creatures have each of them six wings, and they are dotted with eyes all around and beneath the wings. And day and night they never cease saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and is and is to come."

and I heard what seemed to be a voice from the midst of the four living creatures say: "Wheat, fifty cents a quart, barley, fifty cents for three quarts! But you must not injure the oil and wine."

"Do not injure the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we mark the slaves of our God with His seal on their foreheads."

This is why they are before the throne of God, and day and night serve Him in His temple, and He who is seated on His throne will shelter them in His tent.

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.

They were told not to injure the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only the people who did not have the mark of God's seal on their foreheads.

They were not permitted to kill them, but only to torture them for five months, and the torture they inflicted was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings a man.

In those days people will look for death but will not find it, they will long to die but death will flee from them.

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works their hands had done, so as to give up worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot either see or hear or move;

When the seven thunders had rumbled, I was going to write it down, but I heard a voice from heaven say: "Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down!"

but leave off the court outside the temple; do not measure it, because it has been given over to the heathen, and for forty-two months they will trample the city underfoot.

For three days and a half men of all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will look upon their lifeless bodies, and will not let them be buried.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "The salvation, power, and kingdom of our God, and the sovereignty of His Christ, have already come, because the accuser of our brothers, who always day and night accuses them before our God, has been hurled down.

But they have conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the message to which they bore testimony, because they did not cling to life but courted death.

All the inhabitants of the earth whose names, from the foundation of the world, have not been written in the slaughtered Lamb's book of life, will worship him.

Permission has also been given him to impart life to the statue of the wild beast so that it can speak, and to have all who do not worship the statue of the wild beast killed.

These are the men who have not been defiled by relations with women, for they are as pure as virgins, These are the men who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been redeemed from among men as the first fruits for God and the Lamb,

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."

so that men were severely scorched, but they only cursed the name of God who had authority over these plagues, and would not repent and give Him glory.

and cursed the God of heaven because of their sufferings and sores, but they would not repent of what they had done.

(See! I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes ready, so that he may not go naked and people see his shame.)

Every island vanished; not a mountain could be seen;

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.

There are also seven kings; five have fallen, one is on the throne, the other has not yet come, and when he does he must stay but a little while,

The ten horns that you saw are ten kings, who have not yet become kings, but for a single hour they accept authority as kings allied with the wild beast.

Then I heard another voice from heaven say: "Come out of her, my people, so that you may not share in her sins and suffer from her plagues.

To the same degree in which she has lived in splendor and luxury, give her torture and tears. Because she is always boasting in her heart, 'I sit enthroned as queen; I am not a widow, I shall never experience any sorrow' --

Then I fell before his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must take care not to do that. I am only a fellow-slave of yours and of your brothers who hold to the testimony borne by Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony borne by Jesus is the inspiring spirit of prophecy."

Then I saw thrones and those who were seated on them, and permission was granted them to pass judgment, even those who had been beheaded for bearing testimony to Jesus and for preaching the word of God, who refused to worship the wild beast and his statue, and would not let his mark be stamped upon their foreheads and upon their hands. They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.