For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. It is God's gift, and is not on the ground of merit--

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were so far away have been brought near through the death of Christ.

You are a building which has been reared on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus Himself,

which in earlier ages was not made known to the human race, as it has now been revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets through the Spirit--

I mean the truth that the Gentiles are joint heirs with us Jews, and that they form one body with us, and have the same interest as we have in the promise which has been made good in Christ Jesus through the Good News,

in which I have been appointed to serve, in virtue of the work which God, in the exercise of His power within me, has graciously entrusted to me.

To me who am less than the least of all God's people has this work been graciously entrusted--to proclaim to the Gentiles the Good News of the exhaustless wealth of Christ,

if at least you have heard His voice and in Him have been taught--and this is true Christian teaching--

with that new and better self which has been created to resemble God in the righteousness and holiness which come from the truth.

He who has been a thief must steal no more, but, instead of that, should work with his own hands in honest industry, so that he may have something of which he can give the needy a share.

And beware of grieving the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you have been sealed in preparation for the day of Redemption.

For it is true that he has been ill, and was apparently at the point of death; but God had pity on him, and not only on him, but also on me, to save me from having sorrow upon sorrow.

But I rejoice with a deep and holy joy that now at length you have revived your thoughtfulness for my welfare. Indeed you have always been thoughtful for me, although opportunity failed you.

if, indeed, you are still firmly holding to faith as your foundation, without ever shifting from your hope that rests on the Good News that you have heard, which has been proclaimed in the whole creation under Heaven, and in which I Paul have been appointed to serve.

I have been appointed to serve the Church in the position of responsibility entrusted to me by God for your benefit, so that I may fully deliver God's Message--

the truth which has been kept secret from all ages and generations, but has now been revealed to His people,

having been buried with Him in your baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith produced within you by God who raised Him from among the dead.

Jesus, called Justus, also sends greeting. These three are Hebrew converts. They alone among such have worked loyally with me for the Kingdom of God--they are men who have been a comfort to me.

And when this Letter has been read among you, let it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans, and you in turn must read the one I am sending to Laodicea.

Seeing that we were thus drawn affectionately towards you, it would have been a joy to us to have imparted to you not only God's Good News, but to have given our very lives also, because you had become very dear to us.

But we, brethren, having been for a short time separated from you in bodily presence, though not in heart, endeavoured all the more earnestly, with intense longing, to see you face to face.

For this reason I also, when I could no longer endure the uncertainty, sent to know the condition of your faith, lest perchance the Tempter might have tempted you and our labour have been lost.

for this reason in our distress and trouble we have been comforted about you, brethren, by your faith.

But on the subject of love for the brotherhood it is unnecessary for me to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another;

not readily to become unsettled in mind or troubled--either by any pretended spiritual revelation or by any message or letter claiming to have been sent by us--through fancying that the day of the Lord is now here.

and is not in accordance with the Good News of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

though I was previously a blasphemer and a persecutor and had been insolent in outrage. Yet mercy was shown me, because I had acted ignorantly, not having as yet believed;

and of which I have been appointed a herald and an Apostle (I am speaking the truth: it is not a fiction)

If you warn the brethren of these dangers you will be a good and faithful servant of Christ Jesus, inwardly feeding on the lessons of the faith and of the sound teaching of which you have been, and are, so close a follower.

She must have been true to her one husband, and well reported of for good deeds, as having brought up children, received strangers hospitably, washed the feet of God's people, given relief to the distressed, and devoted herself to good works of every kind.

but which has now been plainly revealed through the Appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus. He has put an end to death and has brought Life and Immortality to light through the Good News,

of which I have been appointed a preacher, Apostle and teacher, to the Gentiles.

All that you have been taught by me in the hearing of many witnesses, you must hand on to trusty men who shall themselves, in turn, be competent to instruct others also.

"If we patiently endure pain, we shall also share His Kingship; "If we disown Him, He will also disown us;

But you must cling to the things which you have learnt and have been taught to believe, knowing who your teachers were,

in order that having been declared righteous through His grace we might become heirs to the Life of the Ages in fulfilment of our hopes.

For I have found great joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of God's people have been, and are, refreshed through you, my brother.

how shall *we* escape if we are indifferent to a salvation as great as that now offered to us? This, after having first of all been announced by the Lord Himself, had its truth made sure to us by those who heard Him,

and might set at liberty all those who through fear of death had been subject to lifelong slavery.

For inasmuch as He has Himself felt the pain of temptation and trial, He is also able instantly to help those who are tempted and tried.

For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, in so far as he who has built a house has higher honour than the house itself.

For Good News has been brought to us as truly as to them; but the message they heard failed to benefit them, because they were not one in faith with those who gave heed to it.

We who have believed are soon to be admitted to the true rest; as He has said, "As I swore in My anger, they shall not be admitted to My rest," although God's works had been going on ever since the creation of the world.

For He who has been admitted to His rest, has rested from His works as God did from His.

and so, having been made perfect, He became to all who obey Him the source and giver of eternal salvation.

For although, considering the long time you have been believers, you ought now to be teachers of others, you really need some one to teach you over again the very rudiments of the truths of God, and you have come to require milk instead of solid food.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once for all been enlightened, and have tasted the sweetness of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,

Now think how great this priest-king must have been to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth part of the best of the spoil.

for these men hold office without any oath having been taken, but He holds it attested by an oath from Him who said to Him, "The Lord has sworn and will not recall His words, Thou art a Priest for ever" --

And they have been appointed priests many in number, because death prevents their continuance in office:

For the Law constitutes men High Priests--men with all their infirmity--but the utterance of the oath, which came later than the Law, constitutes High Priest a Son who has been made for ever perfect.

Now in connexion with what we have been saying the chief point is that we have a High Priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God's Majesty in the heavens,

For if that first Covenant had been free from imperfection, there would have been no attempt to introduce another.

These arrangements having long been completed, the priests, when conducting the divine services, continually enter the outer tent.

But Christ appeared as a High Priest of the blessings that are soon to come by means of the greater and more perfect Tent of worship, a tent which has not been built with hands--that is to say does not belong to this material creation--

And because of this He is the negotiator of a new Covenant, in order that, since a life has been given in atonement for the offences committed under the first Covenant, those who have been called may receive the eternal inheritance which has been promised to them.

so the Christ also, having been once offered in sacrifice in order that He might bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, separated from sin, to those who are eagerly expecting Him, to make their salvation complete.

For then would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered, because the consciences of the worshippers--who in that case would now have been cleansed once for all--would no longer be burdened with sins?

It is through that divine will that we have been set free from sin, through the offering of Jesus Christ as our sacrifice once for all.

But where these have been forgiven no further offering for sin is required.

Through faith he came and made his home for a time in a land which had been promised to him, as if in a foreign country, living in tents together with Isaac and Jacob, sharers with him in the same promise;

with regard to whom he had been told, "It is through Isaac that your posterity shall be traced."

For they could not endure the order which had been given, "Even a wild beast, if it touches the mountain, shall be stoned to death;"

You will rejoice to hear that our brother Timothy has been set at liberty. If he comes soon, I will see you with him.

Every gift which is good, and every perfect boon, is from above, and comes down from the Father, who is the source of all Light. In Him there is no variation nor the slightest suggestion of change.

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.

to an inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading, which has been reserved in Heaven for you,

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.

Therefore gird up your minds and fix your hopes calmly and unfalteringly upon the boon that is soon to be yours, at the re-appearing of Jesus Christ.

knowing, as you do, that it was not with a ransom of perishable wealth, such as silver or gold, that you were set free from your frivolous habits of life which had been handed down to you from your forefathers,

He was pre-destined indeed to this work, even before the creation of the world, but has been plainly manifested in these last days for the sake of you who, through Him,

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

But the word of the Lord remains for ever." And that means the Message which has been proclaimed among you in the Good News.

To you believers, therefore, that honour belongs; but for unbelievers-- "A Stone which the builders rejected has been made the Cornerstone,"

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.

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.

who in ancient times had been disobedient, while God's longsuffering was patiently waiting in the days of Noah during the building of the Ark, in which a few persons--eight in number--were brought safely through the water.

who is at God's right hand, having gone into Heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.

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.

Simon Peter, a bondservant and Apostle of Jesus Christ: To those to whom there has been allotted the same precious faith as that which is ours through the righteousness of our God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

For the man in whom they are lacking is blind and cannot see distant objects, in that he has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins.

For when we made known to you the power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were not eagerly following cleverly devised legends, but we had been eye-witnesses of His majesty.

Thirsting for riches, they will trade on you with their canting talk. From of old their judgement has been working itself out, and their destruction has not been slumbering.

These people are wells without water, mists driven along by a storm, men for whom the dense darkness has been reserved.

And they promise them freedom, although they are themselves the slaves of what is corrupt. For a man is the slave of any one by whom he has been worsted in fight.

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."

You, therefore, dear friends, having been warned beforehand, must continually be on your guard so as not to be led astray by the false teaching of immoral men nor fall from your own stedfastness.

Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been fully revealed. We know that if Christ reappears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

He who is habitually guilty of sin is a child of the Devil, because the Devil has been a sinner from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for the purpose of undoing the work of the Devil.

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.

Love has in it no element of fear; but perfect love drives away fear, because fear involves pain, and if a man gives way to fear, there is something imperfect in his love.

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

So also Sodom and Gomorrah--and the neighboring towns in the same manner--having been guilty of gross fornication and having gone astray in pursuit of unnatural vice, are now before us as a specimen of the fire of the Ages in the punishment which they are undergoing.

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.

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.

Her children too shall surely die; and all the Churches shall come to know that I am He who searches into men's inmost thoughts; and to each of you I will give a requital which shall be in accordance with what your conduct has been.

Then, midway between the throne and the four living creatures, I saw a Lamb standing among the Elders. He looked as if He had been offered in sacrifice, and He had seven horns and seven eyes. The last-named are the seven Spirits of God, and have been sent far and wide into all the earth.

And now they sing a new song. "It is fitting," they say, "that Thou shouldst be the One to take the book And break its seals; Because Thou hast been offered in sacrifice, And hast purchased for God with Thine own blood Some out of every tribe and language and people and nation,

and in loud voices they were singing, "It is fitting that the Lamb which has been offered in sacrifice should receive all power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing."