Throw all your anxiety upon him, for he cares for you.

Resist him and be strong in the faith, for you know that your brotherhood all over the world is having the same experience of suffering.

For his divine power has given us every requisite for life and piety, through our coming to know him who through his glory and excellence called us to him.

For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,

For if you have these qualities in their fulness, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive when it comes to the understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind or near-sighted, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, make all the greater efforts to make God's call and choice of you certain. For if you have these qualities, you will never stumble,

for then you will be triumphantly admitted to the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

for I know that I must soon put it away, as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

For they were no fictitious stories that we followed when we informed you of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his coming, but we had been eye-witnesses of his majesty.

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

for no prophecy ever originated in the human will, but under the influence of the holy Spirit men spoke for God.

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

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

against whom even angels far superior to these beings in strength and power bring no abusive charge before the Lord.

suffering wrong as the reward for their wrongdoing. They find pleasure in the indulgence of the moment; they are a stain and a disgrace, and they revel in their deceit while they join in your religious meals.

They have eyes for nobody but adulterous women??yes insatiable in sin. They lure unsteadfast souls. Their hearts are trained in greed. They are accursed!

but he was rebuked for his offense; a dumb animal spoke with a human voice and checked the prophet's madness.

promising them freedom when they are themselves slaves of destruction; for a man is the slave of whatever overcomes him.

For if after men have escaped the corrupting influences of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome by them, their final condition is worse than their former one.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of uprightness than after knowing it to have turned their backs upon the sacred command with which they had been intrusted.

and saying, "Where is his promised coming? For ever since our forefathers fell asleep everything has remained as it was from the beginning of creation!"

For they wilfully ignore the fact that long ago there existed heavens and an earth which had been formed at God's command out of water and by water,

But by the same command the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, and are kept for the day when godless men are to be judged and destroyed.

Therefore, dear friends, while waiting for this, make every effort to be found by him unstained, irreproachable, and at peace.

It is what existed from the beginning, that we announce; what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld, and touched with our hands; it is the very message of life??2 for life has been revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and announce to you that eternal life that was with the Father and has been revealed to us??3 it is what we have seen and heard that we announce to you also, so that you may share our fellowship, for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,

My dear children, I am writing you this so that you may not sin; yet if anyone does sin, we have in Jesus Christ one who is upright and will intercede for us with the Father.

He is himself an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.

Yet it is a new command that I am writing you; it is newly realized in him and in yourselves, for the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

But whoever hates his brother is in darkness, and is living in darkness, and he does not know where he is going, for the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven for his sake.

Do not love the world or what is in the world. If anyone loves the world, there is no love for the Father in his heart,

for all that there is in the world, the things that our physical nature and our eyes crave, and the proud display of life??hese do not come from the Father, but from the world;

They have gone out from our number, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had, they would have stayed with us. It was to make it clear that none of them really belonged to us that they withdrew.

Think what love the Father has had for us, in letting us be called God's children, for that is what we are. This is why the world does not know what we are??ecause it has never come to know him.

Dear friends, we are God's children now; it has not yet been disclosed what we are to be. We know that if he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Whoever commits sin is a child of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared??o undo the devil's work.

No one who is a child of God commits sin, for God's nature remains in his heart, and he cannot sin, because he is a child of God.

For the message you have heard from the beginning is this: We must love one another.

We know what love means from the fact that he laid down his life for us; so we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

But if someone who is rich sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how can he have any love for God in his heart?

if they condemn us for anything, for God is greater than our consciences, and he knows all.

and we obtain from him whatever we ask for, because we are obeying his commands and doing the things that please him.

Dear friends, do not believe every inspired utterance, but test the utterances to see whether they come from God, for many false prophets have come out into the world.

You are children of God, dear children, and you have been victorious over these men, for he who is in our hearts is greater than he who is in the world.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God's love for us has been revealed in this way??hat God has sent his only Son into the world, to let us have life through him.

The love consists not in our having loved God, but in his loving us and sending his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

No one has ever seen God; yet if we love one another, God keeps in union with us and love for him attains perfection in our hearts.

So we know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love keeps in union with God, and God with him.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. For fear suggests punishment and no one who feels fear has attained perfect love.