See what this pain divine has done for you, how serious it has made you, how keen to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager for me, how determined, how relentless! You have shown in every way that you were honest in the business.

But I will tell you what I think about it; it is to your interest to go on with this enterprise, for you started it last year, you were the first not merely to do anything but to want to do anything.

Even supposing I were to boast somewhat freely of my authority (and the Lord gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you), I would feel quite justified.

But I am not going to seem as if I were 'overawing you with a letter,' so to speak.

Where were you inferior to the rest of the churches? ??unless in this, that your apostle did not choose to make himself a burden to you. Pray pardon me this terrible wrong!

Now even though it were myself or some angel from heaven, whoever preaches a gospel that contradicts the gospel I preached to you, God's curse be on him!

There were traitors of false brothers, who had crept in to spy out the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus; they did aim at enslaving us again.

But we refused to yield for a single instant to their claims; we were determined that the truth of the gospel should hold good for you.

Only, we were to 'remember the poor.' I was quite eager to do that myself.

But I saw they were swerving from the true line of the gospel; so I said to Cephas in presence of them all, "If you live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, though you are a Jew yourself, why do you oblige the Gentiles to become Jews?" ??15 We may be Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners,'

Now the Promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it is not said, 'and to your offsprings' in the plural, but in the singular and to your offspring ??which is Christ.

Before this faith came, we were confined by the Law and kept in custody, with the prospect of the faith that was to be revealed;

So with us. When we were under age, we lived under the thraldom of the Elemental spirits of the world;

to ransom those who were under the Law, that we might get our sonship.

In those days, when you were ignorant of God, you were in servitude to gods who are really no gods at all;

You were doing splendidly. Who was it that prevented you from obeying the Truth?

Brothers, you were called to be free; only, do not make your freedom an opening for the flesh, but serve one another in love.

And as with us so with you. You were dead in the trespasses and sins

among whom all of us lived, we as well as you, when we obeyed the passions of our flesh, carrying out the dictates of the flesh and its impulses, when we were objects of God's anger by nature, like the rest of men.

But, dead in trespasses as we were, God was so rich in mercy that for his great love to us

Remember, then, that once upon a time you Gentiles in the flesh, who are called 'the Uncircumcision' by that so-called 'Circumcision' which is itself the product of human hands in the flesh ??12 remember you were in those days outside Christ, aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the Promise, devoid of hope and God within the world.

Whereas now, within Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

he came with a gospel of peace for those far away (that is, for you) and for those who were near,

For there is one Body and one Spirit ??as you were called for the one hope that belongs to your call ??5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

For while once upon a time you were darkness, now in the Lord you are light; lead the life of those who are children of the light

for he nearly died in the service of Christ by risking his life to make up for the services you were not here to render me.

But you were kind enough to take your share in my trouble.

He is the likeness of the unseen God, born first before all the creation ??16 for it was by him that all things were created both in heaven and on earth, both the seen and the unseen, including Thrones, angelic Lords, celestial Powers and Rulers; all things have been created by him and for him;

Once you were estranged yourselves, your hearts hostile to him in evildoing; but now he has reconciled you by dying in his mortal body,

when you were buried with him in your baptism and thereby raised with him as you believed in the power of the God who raised him from the dead.

For though you were dead in your trespasses, your flesh uncircumcised, He made you live with Christ, He forgave us all our trespasses,

for our gospel came to you not with mere words but also with power and with the holy Spirit, with ample conviction on our part (you know what we were to you, for your own good),

no, we behaved gently when we were among you, like a nursing mother cherishing her own children,

Brothers, when we were bereft of you for a little while (out of sight, not out of mind), we were the more eager to see you. We had a keen longing for you.

for we told you beforehand, when we were with you, that "we Christians are to have trouble" ??and, as you know, it has been so.)

We used to charge you even when we were with you, 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.'

I obtained mercy, for the purpose of furnishing Christ Jesus with the chief illustration of his utter patience; I was to be the typical instance of all who were to believe in him and gain eternal life.

fight in the good fight of the faith, secure that life eternal to which you were called when you voiced the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Hence I would remind you to rekindle the divine gift which you received when my hands were laid upon you;

for which I have to suffer imprisonment as if I were a criminal. (But there is no prison for the word of God.)

For these guides of theirs are hostile to the Truth, just as Jannes and Jambres were hostile to Moses; they are depraved in mind and useless for all purposes of faith.

but hold you to what you have been taught, hold to your convictions, remember who your teachers were,

For we ourselves were once senseless, disobedient, astray, enslaved to all manner of passions and pleasures; we spent our days in malice and envy, we were hateful, and we hated one another.

Perhaps this was why you and he were parted for a while, that you might get him back for good,

Many were the forms and fashions in which God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets,

For we do enter the Rest by our faith: according to his word, As I swore in my anger, they shall never enter my Rest ??although his works were all over by the foundation of the world.

Were he on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests already to offer the gifts prescribed by Law

above this were the cherubims of the Glory, overshadowing the mercy seat ??matters which it is impossible for me to discuss at present in detail.

Such were the arrangements for worship. The priests constantly enter the first tent, in the discharge of their ritual duties,

Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle of suffering,

It was by faith that he sojourned in the promised land, as in a foreign country, residing in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob who were co-heirs with him of the same promise;

(These all died in faith without obtaining the promises; they only saw them far away and hailed them, owning they were 'strangers and exiles upon earth.'

It was by faith that they crossed the Red Sea like dry land ??and when the Egyptians attempted it they were drowned.

It was by faith that Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, as she had welcomed the scouts peaceably.

Some were given back to their womankind, raised from the very dead; others were broken on the wheel, refusing to accept release, that they might obtain a better resurrection;

others, again, had to experience scoffs and scourging, aye chains and imprisonment ??37 they were stoned, sawn in two, and cut to pieces; they had to roam about in sheepskins and goatskins, forlorn, oppressed, ill-treated

Remember prisoners, as if you were in prison yourselves; remember those who are being ill-treated, since you too are in the body.

you know it was not by perishable silver or gold that you were ransomed from the futile traditions of your past,

But you are the elect race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, the People who belong to Him, that you may proclaim the wondrous deeds of Him who has called you from darkness to his wonderful light ??10 you who once were no people and now are God's people, you who once were unpitied and now are pitied.

You were astray like sheep, but you have come back now to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves. They were submissive to their husbands.

who had disobeyed at the time when God's patience held out during the construction of the ark in the days of Noah ??the ark by which only a few souls, eight in all, were brought safely through the water.)

For it was no fabricated fables that we followed when we reported to you the power and advent of our Lord Jesus Christ; we were admitted to the spectacle of his sovereignty,

That voice borne from heaven we heard, we who were beside him on the sacred hill,

asking, "Where is His promised advent? Since the day our fathers fell asleep, things remain exactly as they were from the beginning of creation."

we are not to be like Cain, who belonged to the evil One and slew his brother. And why did he slay him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's just.

and every spirit which does not confess Jesus [incarnate] does not come from God. This latter is the spirit of antichrist; you were told it was coming, and here it is already in the world.

I was overjoyed to find some of your children leading the true Life, as we were commanded to do by the Father.

And now I entreat you, Lady ??not as though I were writing you any new command, it is the command which we have had from the very beginning ??let us love one another.

his head and hair were white as wool, white as snow; his eyes flashed like fire,

I know your doings, you are neither cold nor hot ??would you were either cold or hot!

also round the throne four and twenty thrones, and on these thrones four and twenty Presbyters seated, who were clad in white raiment with golden crowns upon their heads.

"Thou deservest, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for it was thou who didst create all things: they existed and were created by thy will."

So I looked, and there was a livid horse; its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. They were given power over the fourth part of the earth, to kill men with sword and famine and plague and by the wild beasts of the earth.

But they were each given a white robe, and told to remain quiet for a little longer, until their number was completed by their fellow-servants and their brothers who were to be killed like themselves.

And I saw another angel rise up from the east, with the seal of the living God; he shouted aloud to the four angels who were allowed to injure the earth and sea,

The first blew, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, falling on the earth; a third of the earth was burnt up, a third of the trees were burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up.

a third of the creatures in the sea ??the living creatures ??perished, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

and he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke poured out of the pit, like the smoke of a huge furnace, till the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.

And out of the smoke came locusts on the earth; they were granted power like the power wielded by scorpions on earth,

but they were told not to harm the grass on earth nor any green thing nor any tree, only such human beings as had not the seal of God upon their foreheads;

these they were allowed, not to kill but to torture, for five months ??and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings a man.

The appearance of the locusts resembled horses armed for battle; on their heads were sort of crowns like gold; their faces were like human faces,

their tails and their stings were like scorpions', and their power of hurting men for five months lay in their tails;

So the four angels were unloosed, who had been kept ready for that hour and day and month and year, to kill the third of men.

And this is how the horses and their riders looked in my vision: they wore coats of mail red as fire, dark-blue as jacinth and yellow as smoke; the horses' heads were like lions' heads, and from their mouths poured fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three plagues the third of men were killed, by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone, that poured out of their mouths;

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands and give up worshipping daemons and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which cannot either see or hear or stir;

and the dwellers on earth will gloat over them and rejoice, sending presents to congratulate one another ??for these two prophets were a torment to the dwellers on earth.

At that hour a great earthquake took place, a tenth of the City was destroyed, and seven thousand souls perished in the earthquake: the rest were awestruck, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

the nations were enraged, but thine anger has come; the time has come for the dead to be judged, the time for rewarding thy servants the prophets, and the saints who reverence thy name, both low and high, the time for destroying the destroyers of the earth."

Then the temple of God in heaven was thrown open, and the ark of his covenant was seen inside his temple; there were flashes of lightning, loud blasts, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a hailstorm.

The Beast I saw resembled a leopard, his feet were like a bear's, and his mouth like a lion's. To him the dragon gave his own power and his own throne and great authority.

they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living Creatures and the Presbyters, and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been ransomed from earth.

They were followed by another, a third angel, crying aloud, "Whoever worships the Beast and his statue, and lets his forehead or hand be marked,

and they were singing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb ??"Great and marvellous are thy deeds, Lord God almighty! Just and true thy ways, O King of nations!

and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his might, nor could anyone enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were over.

The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its waters were dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east.

And they were mustered at the spot called (in Hebrew) Harmagedon.

The woman was clad in purple and scarlet, her ornaments were of gold and precious stones and pearls, in her hand was a golden cup full of all abominations and the impurities of her vice,