My brothers, if any one of you is led astray from the truth, and someone brings him back,

you may be sure that whoever brings a sinner back from his misguided way will save the man's soul from death, and cover up a host of sins.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has caused us to be born anew to a life of hope through Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead,

It was disclosed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in dealing with these things, which have now been told you by those who through the holy Spirit sent from heaven brought you the good news; things into which angels long to look!

for you know that you have not been ransomed with anything perishable like silver or gold, from the futile way of living in which you were brought up,

for the sake of you who through him trust in God, who raised him from the dead and showed him honor; and so your faith and hope rest on God.

for you have been born anew from a germ not perishable, but imperishable, through the message of the living, everlasting God.

Free yourselves, therefore, from all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of any kind,

Live upright lives among the heathen, so that even if they charge you with being evil-doers, they may from observing the uprightness of your conduct come to praise God on the Day of Judgment.

For God approves a man if from a sense of duty he endures suffering unjustly inflicted??20 for what credit is there in your enduring being beaten for doing wrong? But if you endure suffering for doing what is right, you have God's approval.

For "Let him who would enjoy life And see happy days, Keep his tongue from evil, And his lips from uttering deceit.

Let him turn away from evil and do right, Let him seek peace and go after it.

I appeal therefore to those who are elders among you; I am their brother-elder and a witness to what the Christ suffered, and I am to share in the glory that is to be revealed??2 be shepherds of the flock of God that is among you, not as though it were forced upon you but of your own free will, and not from base love of gain but freely,

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind or near-sighted, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his former sins.

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

In their greed they will exploit you with pretended arguments. From of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not slumbered.

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

They utter arrogant nonsense and use physical cravings to lure into immorality men who are just escaping from among those who live in error;

and saying, "Where is his promised coming? For ever since our forefathers fell asleep everything has remained as it was from the beginning of creation!"

It is what existed from the beginning, that we announce; what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld, and touched with our hands; it is the very message of life??2 for life has been revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and announce to you that eternal life that was with the Father and has been revealed to us??3 it is what we have seen and heard that we announce to you also, so that you may share our fellowship, for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,

This is the message that we heard from him and announce to you: God is light; there is no darkness in him at all.

But if we live in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.

If we acknowledge our sins, he is upright and can be depended on to forgive our sins and cleanse us from everything wrong.

Dear friends, it is no new command that I am writing you, but an old one that you have had from the beginning. That old command is the same as the message you have heard.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have been victorious over the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and God's message is always in your hearts, and you have been victorious over the evil one.

for all that there is in the world, the things that our physical nature and our eyes crave, and the proud display of life??hese do not come from the Father, but from the world;

They have gone out from our number, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had, they would have stayed with us. It was to make it clear that none of them really belonged to us that they withdrew.

I do not write to you because you do not know it, but because you do know it, and because no lie can come from the truth.

Keep what you have heard from the beginning in your hearts; then you will always be in union with the Son and the Father.

You still retain in your hearts the anointing with the Spirit that you received from him, and you do not need to have anyone teach you. But just as that anointing of his teaches you about everything, and as it is true and no falsehood, keep in union with him just as it has taught you to do.

Now, dear children, keep in union with him, so that if he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame when he comes.

Whoever commits sin is a child of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared??o undo the devil's work.

For the message you have heard from the beginning is this: We must love one another.

We know what love means from the fact that he laid down his life for us; so we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

From that we can be sure that we are on the side of the truth, and satisfy our consciences in God's sight,

and we obtain from him whatever we ask for, because we are obeying his commands and doing the things that please him.

Dear friends, do not believe every inspired utterance, but test the utterances to see whether they come from God, for many false prophets have come out into the world.

You can tell the Spirit of God in this way: all inspiration that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God,

and any inspired utterance that does not acknowledge Jesus does not come from God; it is the inspiration of the Antichrist. You have heard that it was coming, and here it is already in the world.

We are God's children. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not a child of God will not listen to us. In this way we can tell what is inspired by truth from what is inspired by error.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

This is the command that we get from him, that whoever loves God must love his brother also.

Dear children, keep away from idols.

blessing, mercy, and peace be with us from God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, in truth and love.

And now I beg you, my lady??ot as though I were writing you any new command, but one which we have had from the beginning??et us love one another.

Love means this, that we be guided by his commands. The command, as you have heard from the beginning, is to be guided by love.

For many impostors have gone out into the world??en who do not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in human form. That is the mark of the impostor and the Antichrist.

For they have started out for the sake of the cause, and they are accepting nothing from the heathen.

Of them also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, when he said, "See! The Lord comes with his holy myriads

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in his presence irreproachable and triumphant??25 to the one God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord now and forever and ever. Amen.

John to the seven churches in Asia, blessing and peace to you from him who is and was and is coming, and from the seven spirits before his throne,

and from Jesus Christ the trustworthy witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the sovereign of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has released us from our sins by his blood

In his right hand he held seven stars; from his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword, and his face shone like the sun at noonday.

So remember how far you have fallen, and repent and do as you did at first, or else I will come to you and take your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.

To him who is victorious and continues to the end to do the things that please me, I will give authority over the heathen??27 just such authority as I received from my Father; he will shepherd them with an iron staff and shatter them like earthen jars!??28 and I will give him the morning star.

He who is victorious will be clothed thus, in white clothing, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, but I will acknowledge him as mine in the presence of my Father and his angels.

I will make him who is victorious a pillar in the temple of my God; he shall never go out of it again. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God??he new Jerusalem, which is to come down out of heaven from my God??nd my new name.

I advise you to buy of me gold that has been tested with fire, so that you may be rich, and white clothes to put on, to keep your shameful nakedness from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, to make you see.

Out from the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. In front of the throne seven blazing lamps were burning; they are the seven spirits of God.

He came and took the roll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

Then they sang a new song: "You deserve to take the roll and open its seals, for you have been slaughtered, and with your blood have bought for God men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation,

And another horse came forth, bright red, and its rider was given power to take peace away from the earth, and make men slaughter one another; he was given a great sword.

and I heard a voice which seemed to come from the midst of the four animals say, "Wheat at a dollar a quart, and barley three quarts for a dollar, but you must not injure the oil and wine!"

the sky was torn apart and rolled up like a roll; and every mountain and island was dislodged from its place.

And they said to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us, and conceal us from the sight of him who is seated on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb,

Then I saw another angel ascend from the east with the seal of the living God, and he cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who had it in their power to harm the earth and the sea,

I heard that the number of those that were marked with the seal was 144,000. They were from every tribe of the children of Israel:

12,000 from the tribe of Judah that were marked; 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben; 12,000 from the tribe of Gad;

12,000 from the tribe of Asher; 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali; 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh;

12,000 from the tribe of Symeon; 12,000 from the tribe of Levi; 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar;

12,000 from the tribe of Zebulon; 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph; 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin.

After that I saw a great crowd which no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

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

for the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes."

So the smoke of the incense went up before God from the angel's hand for the prayers of his people.

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar, and emptied it upon the earth, and there followed peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and there fell from the sky a great star blazing like a torch, and it fell upon one third of the streams and the springs of water.

Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen on the earth from the sky. He was given the key to the pit of the abyss,

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

In those days men will seek death and never find it. They will want to die, but death will fly from them.

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the corners of the altar of gold that was before God

And this was how the horses and their riders looked in my vision: Their breast-plates were fire red, dark blue, and yellow. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and fire, smoke, and sulphur poured from their mouths.

One third of mankind were killed by these three plagues??he fire, smoke, and sulphur that poured from their mouths.

Then I saw another mighty angel descend from heaven. He was clothed in a cloud, and a rainbow encircled his head. His face was like the sun, his legs were like pillars of fire,

When the seven thunders had spoken I was going to write it down, but I heard a voice from heaven say, "Seal up what the seven thunders have said! Do not write it down!"

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

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

After three days and a half, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror seized those who saw them.

And they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, "Come up here." And they went up to heaven in a cloud, before the eyes of their enemies.

Then the serpent poured water from his mouth after the woman like a river, to sweep her away.

All the inhabitants of the earth whose names have not from the foundation of the world been written in the slain Lamb's book of life, will worship it.

It performs great wonders, even making fire come down from heaven to earth before men's eyes.

And I heard a sound from heaven, like the sound of great waters, and loud peals of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing on their harps.

They were singing a new song before the throne and the four animals and the elders, and no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been ransomed from the earth.

They are the men who have not been defiled by relations with women; they are celibates. It is they who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been ransomed from among men as the first-fruits for God and the Lamb,

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who from this time forth die as Christians!" "Yes!" answers the Spirit, "Let them rest from their toil, for what they have done will go with them!"

And another angel came forth from the altar, who presided over the fire, and he called in a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, "Use your sharp sickle and gather the bunches of grapes from the earth's vine, for the grapes on it are ripe."

And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and standing upon the sea of glass those who had come off victorious from the animal and its statue and the number corresponding to its name. They had harps that God had given them,

and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory and power of God, and no one could go into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were over.