But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will disappear with a roaring sound, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be exposed.

Instead, continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah. Glory belongs to him both now and on that eternal day! Amen.

This life was revealed to us, and we have seen it and testify about it. We declare to you this eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.

What we have seen and heard we declare to you so that you, too, can have fellowship with us. Now this fellowship of ours is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus, the Messiah.

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

This is the message that we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness none at all!

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.

If we say that we have never sinned, we make him a liar and his word has no place in us.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you might not sin. Yet if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus, the Messiah, one who is righteous.

This is how we can be sure that we have come to know him: if we continually keep his commandments.

The person who says, "I have come to know him," but does not continually keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth has no place in that person.

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:

The one who says that he abides in him must live the same way he himself lived.

Dear friends, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning. This old commandment is the word you have heard.

On the other hand, I am writing to you a new commandment that is truly in him and in you. For the darkness is fading away, and the true light is already shining.

The person who says that he is in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.

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.

For everything that is in the world the desire for fleshly gratification, the desire for possessions, and worldly arrogance is not from the Father but is from the world.

Little children, it is the last hour. Just as you heard that an antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.

They left us, but they were not part of us, for if they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. Their leaving made it clear that none of them was really part of us.

Who is a liar but the person who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? The person who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist.

The message that the Son himself declared to us is eternal life.

Since you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by God.

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.

You know that the Messiah was revealed to take away sins, and there is not any sin in him.

The person who practices sin belongs to the evil one, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason that the Son of God was revealed was to destroy what the Devil has been doing.

This is the message that you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another. The person who does not love remains spiritually dead.

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

This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we will be able to keep ourselves strong in his presence.

If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.

The person who keeps his commandments abides in God, and God abides in him. This is how we can be sure that he remains in us: he has given us his Spirit.

This is how you can recognize God's Spirit: Every spirit who acknowledges that Jesus the Messiah has become human and remains so is from God.

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

Little children, you belong to God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

These people belong to the world. That is why they speak from the world's perspective, and the world listens to them.

This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him.

This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

This is how we know that we abide in him and he in us: he has given us his Spirit.

We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

God abides in the one who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, and he abides in God.

We have come to know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

And this is the commandment that we have from him: the person who loves God must also love his brother.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born from God, and everyone who loves the parent also loves the child.

This is how we know that we love God's children: we love God and keep his commandments.

because everyone who is born from God has overcome the world. Our faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Who overcomes the world? Is it not the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

The person who believes in the Son of God believes this testimony personally. The person who does not believe God has made him a liar by not believing the testimony that he 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 this is the confidence that we have in him: if we ask for anything according to his will, he listens to us.

And if we know that he listens to our requests, we can be sure that we have what we ask him for.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray that God would give him life. This applies to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not telling you to pray about that.

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

We know that the person who has been born from God does not go on sinning. Rather, the Son of God protects them, and the evil one cannot harm them.

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.

that is present in us and will be with us forever.

Dear lady, I am now requesting of you that we all continue to love one another. It is not as though I am writing to give you a new commandment, but one that we have had from the beginning.

And this is what demonstrates love: that we live according to God's commandments. Just as you have heard from the beginning what he commanded, you must live by it.

See to it that you don't destroy what we have worked for, but that you receive your full reward.

Although I have a great deal to write to you, I would prefer not to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

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.

Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can become genuine helpers with them.

For this reason, when I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with that, he refuses to receive the brothers. He even tries to stop those who want to accept them and throws them out of the church.

Demetrius has received a good report from everyone, including the truth itself. We, too, can testify to this report, and you know that our testimony is true.

Dear friends, although I was eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write to you and urge you to continue your vigorous defense of the faith that was passed down to the saints once and for all.

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.

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.

15He will judge all people and convict everyone of all the ungodly things that they have done in such an ungodly way, including all the harsh things that these ungodly sinners have said about him."

This is the revelation of Jesus the Messiah, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must happen soon. He made it known by sending his messenger to his servant John,

I am John, your brother and partner in the oppression, kingdom, and patience that comes because of Jesus. I was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus.

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.

"Let everyone listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give the privilege of eating from the tree of life that is in God's paradise.'"

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.

But I have a few things against you: You have there some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, the one who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality.

"Let everyone listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone. On the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the person who receives it.'"

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

But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and who teaches and leads my servants to practice immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will reward each of you as your actions deserve.

"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.

"To the messenger of the church in Philadelphia, write: "The one who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens a door that no one can shut, and who shuts a door that no one can open, "says this:

"I know what you've been doing. Look! I have put in front of you an open door that no one can shut. You have only a little strength, but you have obeyed my word and have not denied my name.

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.

Because you have obeyed my command to endure, I will keep you from the hour of testing that is coming to the whole world to test those living on the earth.

I am coming soon! Hold on to what you have so that no one takes your victor's crown.

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

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.

After these things, I saw a door standing open in heaven. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this."

The person sitting there looked like jasper and carnelian, and there was a rainbow around the throne that looked like an emerald.

I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and on the sea, and everything that is in them, saying, "To the one who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise, honor, glory, and power forever and ever!"

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

After these things, I looked, and there was a crowd so large that no one was able to count it! They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They were standing in front of the throne and the lamb and were wearing white robes, with palm branches in their hands.

Then he told me, "These are the people who are coming out of the terrible suffering. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. That is why: "They are in front of the throne of God and worship him night and day in his Temple. The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.

one-third of the creatures that were living in the sea died, and one-third of the ships was destroyed.

When the fourth angel blew his trumpet, one-third of the sun, one-third of the moon, and one-third of the stars were struck so that one-third of them turned dark. One-third of the day was kept from having light, as was the night.

Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying overhead say in a loud voice, "How terrible, how terrible, how terrible for those living on the earth, because of the blasts of the remaining trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!"