But if anyone suffers as a “Christian,” he should not be ashamed but should glorify God in having that name.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time,

Resist him and be firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.

I have written you this brief letter through Silvanus (I know him to be a faithful brother) to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Take your stand in it!

By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.

knowing that I will soon lay aside my tent, as our Lord Jesus Christ has also shown me.

And I will also make every effort that you may be able to recall these things at any time after my departure.

(for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—

so that you can remember the words previously spoken by the holy prophets and the command of our Lord and Savior given through your apostles.

Through these waters the world of that time perished when it was flooded.

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.

He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stability.

that life was revealed,
and we have seen it
and we testify and declare to you
the eternal life that was with the Father
and was revealed to us—

what we have seen and heard
we also declare to you,
so that you may have fellowship along with us;
and indeed our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ.

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

My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the Righteous One.

This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands.

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the message you have heard.

Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.

For everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world.

Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, “Antichrist is coming,” even now many antichrists have come. We know from this that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son.

And this is the promise that He Himself made to us: eternal life.

So now, little children, remain in Him, so that when He appears we may have boldness and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

If you know that He is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of Him.

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Look at how great a love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know Him.

Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is.

You know that He was revealed so that He might take away sins, and there is no sin in Him.

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we will know we belong to the truth and will convince our conscience in His presence,

Now this is His command: that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He commanded us.

The one who keeps His commands remains in Him, and He in him. And the way we know that He remains in us is from the Spirit He has given us.

This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now.

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit.

And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God.

And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of Him.

This is how we know that we love God’s children when we love God and obey His commands.

because whatever has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.

And who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

For there are three that testify:

If we accept the testimony of men, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that He has given about His Son.

(The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about His Son.)

I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not bring death, he should ask, and God will give life to him—to those who commit sin that doesn’t bring death. There is sin that brings death. I am not saying he should pray about that.

All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that does not bring death.

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the One who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.

We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one.

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true One. We are in the true One—that is, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

because of the truth that remains in us and will be with us forever.

So now I urge you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.

And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.

Watch yourselves so you don’t lose what we have worked for, but that you may receive a full reward.

Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it, does not have God. The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son.

Though I have many things to write to you, I don’t want to do so with paper and ink. Instead, I hope to be with you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.

Dear friend, I pray that you may prosper in every way and be in good health physically just as you are spiritually.

I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Therefore, we ought to support such men so that we can be coworkers with the truth.

This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words. And he is not satisfied with that! He not only refuses to welcome the brothers himself, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church.

Demetrius has a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. And we also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.

Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write and exhort you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.

to execute judgment on all
and to convict them
of all their ungodly acts
that they have done in an ungodly way,
and of all the harsh things ungodly sinners
have said against Him.

The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave Him to show His slaves what must quickly take place. He sent it and signified it through His angel to His slave John,

I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned I saw seven gold lampstands,

I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars.

“Anyone who has an ear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. I will give the victor some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name is inscribed that no one knows except the one who receives it.

I will kill her children with the plague. Then all the churches will know that I am the One who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

I know your works. Because you have limited strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name, look, I have placed before you an open door that no one is able to close.

Take note! I will make those from the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews and are not, but are lying—note this—I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I have loved you.

Because you have kept My command to endure, I will also keep you from the hour of testing that is going to come over the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, so that no one takes your crown.

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

Because you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked,

I advise you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.

After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

and the One seated looked like jasper and carnelian stone. A rainbow that looked like an emerald surrounded the throne.

Around that throne were 24 thrones, and on the thrones sat 24 elders dressed in white clothes, with gold crowns on their heads.

Then one of the elders said to me, “Stop crying. Look! The Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has been victorious so that He may open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then another horse went out, a fiery red one, and its horseman was empowered to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And a large sword was given to him.

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.

The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day was without light, and the night as well.

I looked again and heard an eagle flying high overhead, crying out in a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining trumpet blasts that the three angels are about to sound!”

The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key to the shaft of the abyss was given to him.

He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.

Then locusts came out of the smoke on to the earth, and power was given to them like the power that scorpions have on the earth.

and they had tails with stingers like scorpions, so that with their tails they had the power to harm people for five months.

The sixth angel blew his trumpet. From the four horns of the gold altar that is before God, I heard a voice

This is how I saw the horses in my vision: The horsemen had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and from their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.

A third of the human race was killed by these three plagues—by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came from their mouths.

Then the angel that I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven.

Now the voice that I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”