For the bodies of animals, whose blood is taken into the sanctuary by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.

For here we have no permanent city but are looking for the one that is coming.

Continue to follow and be submissive to your leaders, since they are watching over your souls as those who will have to give a word of explanation. By doing this, you will be letting them carry out their duties joyfully, and not with grief, for that would be harmful for you.

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way.

Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who are from Italy greet you.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you are involved in various trials,

A religion that is pure and stainless according to God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows who are suffering, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

But you have humiliated the man who is poor. Are not rich people the ones who oppress you and drag you into court?

Are not they the ones who blaspheme the noble Name by which you have been called?

Nevertheless, you are doing the right thing if you obey the royal Law in keeping with the Scripture, "You must love your neighbor as yourself."

But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and will be convicted by the Law as violators.

You must make it your habit to speak and act like people who are going to be judged by the law of liberty.

And look at ships! They are so big that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are steered by a tiny rudder wherever the helmsman directs.

With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in God's likeness.

Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his noble conduct that his actions are done humbly and wisely.

Where do those fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your selfish desires that are at war in your bodies, don't they?

Do not criticize each other, brothers. Whoever makes it his habit to criticize his brother or to judge his brother is judging the Law and condemning the Law. But if you condemn the Law, you are not a practicer of the Law but its judge.

There is only one Lawgiver and Judge the one who can save and destroy. So who are you to judge your neighbor?

You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Now listen, you rich people! Cry and moan over the miseries that are overtaking you.

Your riches are rotten, your clothes have been eaten by moths,

your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be used as evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasures in these last days.

Look! The wages that you kept back from the workers who harvested your fields are shouting out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Heavenly Armies.

Through faith you are being protected by God's power for a salvation that is ready to be revealed at the end of this era.

because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you in regard to the things that have now been announced to you by those who brought you the good news through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things that even the angels desire to look into.

If you call "Father" the one who judges everyone impartially according to what they have done, you must live in reverent fear as long as you are strangers in a strange land.

you, too, as living stones, are building yourselves up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, so that you may offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus, the Messiah.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be his very own and to proclaim the wonderful deeds of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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

or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.

You household servants must submit yourselves to your masters out of respect, not only to those who are kind and fair, but also to those who are unjust.

Who will harm you if you are devoted to doing what is good?

But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. "Never be afraid of their threats, and never get upset.

They insult you now because they are surprised that you are no longer joining them in the same excesses of wild living.

Instead, because you are participating in the sufferings of the Messiah, keep on rejoicing, so that you may be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted because of the name of the Messiah, you are blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God is resting on you.

Resist him and be firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

Through Silvanus, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is to be the true grace of God in which you are to stand firm!

Greet one another with a loving kiss. Peace be to all of you who are in the Messiah!

Therefore, I intend to keep on reminding you about these things, even though you already know them and are firmly established in the truth that you now have.

Being bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to slander glorious beings. Yet even angels, although they are greater in strength and power, do not bring a slanderous accusation against them from the Lord.

These people, like irrational animals, are mere creatures of instinct that are born to be caught and killed. They insult what they don't understand, and like animals they, too, will be destroyed,

suffering harm as punishment for their wrongdoing. They take pleasure in wild parties in broad daylight. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceitful pleasures while they eat with you.

With eyes full of adultery, they cannot get enough of sin. They seduce unsteady souls and have had their hearts expertly trained in greed. They are doomed to a curse.

These men are dried-up springs, mere clouds driven by a storm. Gloomy darkness is reserved for them.

Promising them freedom, they themselves are slaves to depravity, for a person is a slave to whatever conquers him.

For if, after escaping the world's corruptions through a full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah, they are again entangled and conquered by those corruptions, then their last condition is worse than their former one.

Now by that same word, the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire and are being kept for the day when ungodly people will be judged and destroyed.

Don't forget this fact, dear friends: With the Lord a single day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a single day.

But in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to have the Lord find you at peace and without spot or fault.

He speaks about this subject in all his letters. Some things in them are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, leading to their own destruction, as they do the rest of the Scriptures.

We are writing these things so that our joy may be full.

If we claim that we have fellowship with him but keep living in darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth.

If we say that we do not have any sin, we are deceiving ourselves and we're not being truthful to ourselves.

But whoever continually keeps his commandments is the kind of person in whom God's love has truly been perfected. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:

I have written to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. I have written to you, young people, because you are strong and because God's word remains in you and you have overcome the evil one.

Stop loving the world and the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, the Father's love is not in him.

And the world and its desires are fading away, but the person who does God's will remains forever.

I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

See what kind of love the Father has given us: We are called God's children and that is what we are! For this reason the world does not recognize us, because it did not recognize him, either.

Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we will be like has not been revealed yet. We know that when the Messiah is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.

This is how God's children and the Devil's children are distinguished. No person who fails to practice righteousness and to love his brother is from God.

Dear friends, stop believing every spirit. Instead, test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

This is how love has been perfected among us: we will have confidence on the day of judgment because, during our time in this world, we are just like him.

For this demonstrates our love for God: We keep his commandments, and his commandments are not difficult,

For there are three witnesses in heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

And there are three witnesses on earth the Spirit, the water, and the blood and these three are one.

Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, yet there are sins that do not lead to death.

We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one.

We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true God. We are in union with the one who is true, his Son Jesus the Messiah, who is the true God and eternal life.

Dear friend, I pray that you are doing well in every way and that you are healthy, just as your soul is healthy.

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

Dear friend, you are faithful in whatever you do for the brothers, especially when they are strangers.

From: Jude, a servant of Jesus the Messiah, and yet a brother of James. To: Those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept safe by Jesus, the Messiah.

For some people have slipped in among you unnoticed. They were written about long ago as being deserving of this condemnation because they are ungodly. They turn the grace of our God into uncontrollable lust and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus the Messiah.

Now I want to remind you, even though you are fully aware of these things, that the Lord who once saved his people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe.

He has also held in eternal chains those angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their assigned place. They are held in deepest darkness for judgment on the great day.

Whatever these people do not understand, they slander. Like irrational animals, they are destroyed by the very things they know by instinct.

These people are stains on your love feasts. They feast with you without any sense of awe. They are shepherds who care only for themselves. They are waterless clouds blown about by the winds. They are autumn trees that are fruitless, totally dead, and uprooted.

They are wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their own shame. They are wandering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.

These people are complainers and faultfinders, following their own desires. They say arrogant things and flatter people in order to take advantage of them.

These are the people who cause divisions. They are worldly, devoid of the Spirit.

From John to the seven churches in Asia. May grace and peace be yours from the one who is, who was, and who is coming, from the seven spirits who are in front of his throne,

The secret meaning of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lamp stands is this: the seven stars are the messengers of the seven churches, and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches."

"I know what you've been doing, your toil, and your endurance. I also know that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and have found them to be false.

"I know your suffering and your poverty though you are rich and the slander committed by those who claim to be Jews but are not. They are the synagogue of Satan.

Don't be afraid of what you are going to suffer. Look! The Devil is going to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested. For ten days you will undergo suffering. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the victor's crown of life.

"To the messenger of the church in Thyatira, write: "The Son of God, whose eyes are like flaming fire and whose feet are like glowing bronze, says this:

"I know what you've been doing your love, faithfulness, service, and endurance and that your last actions are greater than the first.

"I know what you've been doing. You are known for being alive, but you are dead. Be alert, and strengthen the things that are left, which are about to die. I note that your actions are incomplete before my God.

So remember what you received and heard. Obey it, and repent. If you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you won't know the time when I will come to you.

But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me in white clothes because they are worthy.

I will make those who belong to the synagogue of Satan those who claim to be Jews and aren't, but are lying come and bow down at your feet. Then they will realize that I have loved you.

"I know your actions, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot.

Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to spit you out of my mouth.

You say, "I am rich. I have become wealthy. I don't need anything." Yet you don't realize that you are miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

Flashes of lightning, noises, and peals of thunder came from the throne. Burning in front of the throne were seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God.

"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, honor, and power, because you created all things; they came into existence and were created because of your will."