Elijah was a man with feelings just like ours, and yet he earnestly prayed for it not to rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

As obedient children, stop molding your character by the evil desires you used to cherish when you did not know any better,

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;

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.

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.

Our love attains perfection through our having perfect confidence about the day of judgment, because here in this world we are living as He did.

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!"

Alas for them, because they have trod the road that Cain did; for gain they have rushed into Balaam's error and have perished in rebellion like that of Korah!

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 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.

Then one of the elders addressed me and said, "Who are these people clothed in white robes, and where did they come from?"

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.

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;

and they never did repent of their murders, their practices in magic, their immorality, or their thefts.

So I took the little book from the angel's hand and ate it all, and in my mouth it did taste as sweet as honey, but when I had eaten it all, it made my stomach bitter.

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.

The rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years had ended. This is the first resurrection.