'He who would enjoy life And see happy days-- let him keep his tongue from evil And his lips from deceitful words,

Let him turn from evil and do good, Let him seek for peace and follow after it;

I urge you to be true shepherds of the flock of God among you, not because you are compelled, but of your own free will; not from a base love of gain, but with a ready spirit;

God, from whom all help comes, and who called you, by your union with Christ, into his eternal glory, will, when you have suffered for a little while, himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.

To those to whom, through the justice of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, there has been granted faith equally privileged with our own, from Simon Peter, a servant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

For it was through this that he gave us what we prize as the greatest of his promises, that through them you might participate in the divine nature, now that you have fled from the corruption in the world, resulting from human passions.

Surely the man who has not these virtues is shortsighted even to blindness, and has chosen to forget that he has been purified from his sins of the past!

For he received honour and glory from God the Father, when from the Glory of the Divine Majesty there were borne to his ears words such as these-- 'This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I delight.'

These were the words that we heard, borne to our ears from Heaven, when we were with him on that Sacred Mountain.

for no prophetic teaching ever came in the old days at the mere wish of man, but men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke direct from God.

The Lord, therefore, knows how to deliver the pious from temptation, and to keep the wicked, who are even now suffering punishment, in readiness for 'the Day of Judgment'--

With boastful and foolish talk, they appeal to the passions of man's lower nature, and, by their profligacy, entice those who are just escaping from the men who live such misguided lives.

It would, indeed, have been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn away from the holy Command delivered to them.

Do you, therefore, dear friends, now that you know this beforehand, be on your guard against being led away by the errors of reckless people, and so lapsing from your present steadfastness;

It is of what has been in existence from the Beginning, of what we have heard, of what we have seen with our eyes, of what we watched reverently and touched with our hands--it is about the Word who is the Life that we are now writing.

These, then, are the Tidings that we have heard from him and now tell you-- 'God is Light, and Darkness has no place at all in him.'

But, if our lives are lived in the Light, as God himself is in the Light, we have communion with one another, and the Blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we confess our sins, God may be trusted, in his righteousness, to forgive us our sins and purify us from all wickedness.

My children, I am writing to you to keep you from sinning; but if any one should sin, we have one who can plead for us with the Father--Jesus Christ, the Righteous--

Dear friends, it is no new command that I am writing to you, but an old command, which you have had from the first. That old command is the Message to which you listened.

I am writing, Fathers, to you, because you have learned to know him who has been from the Beginning. I am writing, Young Men, to you, because you have conquered the Evil One. I write, Children, to you, because you have learned to know the Father.

I write, Fathers, to you, because you have learned to know him who has been from the Beginning. I write, Young Men, to you, because you are strong, and God's Message is always in your hearts, and you have conquered the Evil One.

From us, it is true, they went out, but they had never belonged to us; for, if they had belonged to us, they would have remained among us. They left us that it might be made clear that they do not, any of them, belong to us.

You, however, have received consecration from the Holy One.

You all know--But I am not writing to you because you do not know the Truth, but because you do know it, and because nothing false can come from the Truth.

But you--you still retain in your hears that consecration which you received from the Christ, and are not in need of any one to teach you; but, since his consecration of you teaches you about everything, and since it is a real consecration, and no lie, then, as it has taught you, maintain your union with him.

Knowing him to be righteous, you realize that every one who lives righteously has received the new Life from him.

He who lives sinfully belongs to the Devil, for the Devil has sinned from the first. It was for this that the Son of God appeared, that he might undo the Devil's work.

No one who has received the new Life from God lives sinfully, because the very nature of God dwells within him; and he cannot live in sin, because he has received the new Life from God.

By this the Children of God are distinguished from the Children of the Devil--No one who lives unrighteously comes from God, and especially the man who does not love his Brother.

For these are the Tidings that we heard from the first--that we are to love one another.

We have learned to know what love is from this--that Christ laid down his life on our behalf. Therefore we also ought to lay down our lives on behalf of our Brothers.

and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we are laying his commands to heart, and are doing what is pleasing in his sight.

Dear friends, do not trust every inspiration, but test each inspiration, to see whether it proceeds from God; because many false Prophets have gone out into the world.

This is the way by which to know the inspiration of God--All inspiration that acknowledges Jesus Christ as come in our human nature is from God;

while all inspiration that does not acknowledge Jesus is not inspiration from God. It is the inspiration of the Anti-Christ; you have heard that it was to come, and it is now already in the world.

You, my Children, come from God, and you have successfully resisted such men as these, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

We come from God. He who knows God listens to us; the man who does not come from God does not listen to us. By that we may know the true inspiration from the false.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because Love comes from God; and every one who loves has received the new Life from God and knows God.

Indeed, we have this Command from God-- 'He who loves God must also love his Brother.'

Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ has received the new Life from God; and every one who loves him who gave that Life loves him who has received it.

because all that has received the new Life from God conquers the world. And this is the power that has conquered the world--our faith!

And if we realize that he listens to us--whatever we ask--we realize that we have what we have asked from him.

We know that no one who has received the new Life from God lives in sin. No, he who has received the new Life from God keeps the thought of God in his heart, and then the Evil One does not touch him.

We realize that we come from God, while all the world is under the influence of the Evil One.

To an eminent Christian Lady, and to her Children, from the Officer of the Church. I sincerely love you all, and not I only, but also all those who have learned to know the Truth.

It was a great joy to me to find the lives of some of your children guided by the Truth, in obedience to the command that we received from the Father.

And now, I pray you, Lady--not as though I were writing a new command for you; no, it is the command which we had from the first--Let us love one another.

And this is love--to live in obedience to the Father's commands. This is the Command as you learned from the first, to live in a spirit of love.

To his dear friend Gaius, whom he sincerely loves, From the Officer of the Church.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to hear from time to time that the lives of my Children are guided by the Truth.

For it was on behalf of the Name that they left their homes, and refused to take anything from the Gentiles.

Therefore, when I come, I shall not forget his conduct in ridiculing us with his wicked tongue. Not content with that, he not only declines to recognize our Brothers himself, but actually prevents those who would, and expels them from the Church.

Dear friend, take what is good for your example, not what is bad. The man who does what is good is from God; the man who does what is bad has never seen God.

To those who, having received the Call, have been loved by God the Father and protected by Jesus Christ, From Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James.

Now I want to remind you--but you already know it all--that, though the Lord delivered the People from Egypt, yet he afterwards destroyed those who refused to believe in him;

To these men, as to others, Enoch, the seventh in descent from Adam, declared-- 'See! the Lord has come with his hosts of holy ones around him,

These men are always murmuring, and complaining of their lot; they follow where their passions lead them; they have arrogant words upon their lips; and they flatter men for the sake of what they can get from them.

To him who is able to guard you from falling, and to bring you into his glorious presence, blameless and rejoicing-

From John, to the seven Churches which are in Roman Asia. Blessing and peace be yours from him who is, and who was, and who shall be, and from the seven Spirits that are before his throne,

and from Jesus Christ, ' the faithful Witness, the First-born from the dead, and the Ruler of all the Kings of the earth.' To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his own blood--

in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like 'the sun in the fulness of its power.'

Therefore remember from what you have fallen, and repent, and live the life that you lived before; or else, I will come and remove your Lamp from its place, unless you repent.

I know your persecution and your poverty--yet you are rich! I know, too, the slander that come from those who declare that they are Jews, though they are not, but are a Congregation of Satan.

Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. He who conquers shall suffer no hurt from the Second Death."

I gave her time to repent, but she is determined not to turn from her licentiousness.

Therefore I am laying her upon a bed of sickness, and bringing great suffering upon those who are unfaithful with her, unless they repent and turn from a life like hers.

and 'he shall rule them with an iron rod, as when earthen vessels are broken in pieces' (as I myself have received from my Father)

He who conquers--I will make him a pillar in the Temple of my God; and never more shall he leave it; and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of Heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name.

Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold which has been refined by fire, that you may grow rich; and white robes, that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness be hidden; and ointment to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

Out from the throne 'come flashes of lightning, cries, and peals of thunder'! There are seven torches burning in front of the throne, which are the seven spirits of God;

The Lamb came forward; and he has taken the book from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

And I heard what seemed to be a voice, coming from among the four Creatures, crying--'A quart of wheat for a florin, and three quarts of barley for a florin! But do not harm the oil and the wine.'

The heavens disappeared like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

and they are crying to the mountains and the rocks-- 'Fall upon us, and hide us from the eyes of him who is seated on the throne, and from the Wrath of the Lamb,

I heard, too, the number of those who had been sealed. It was one hundred and forty-four thousand; and they were from every tribe of the Israelites.

From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,

From the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Napthali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,

From the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,

From the tribe of Zebulon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.

After this, in my vision, I saw a vast throng which no man could number, of men from every nation and of all tribes, and peoples, and languages. They stood in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, robed in white, holding palm branches in their hands.

for the Lamb that stands in the space before the throne will be their shepherd, and will lead them to life-giving springs of water; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.'

The smoke of the incense ascended, with the prayers of Christ's People, from the hand of the angel before God.

Then the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it down upon the earth; and there followed 'peals of thunder, cries, flashes of lightning,' and an earthquake.

Then the third angel blew; and there fell from the heavens a great star, burning like a torch. It fell upon a third of the rivers and upon the springs.

(The star is called 'Wormwood.') A third of the water became bitter as wormwood, and so bitter was the water that many died from drinking it.

Then the fifth angel blew; and I saw a Star that had fallen upon the earth from the heavens, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

He opened the bottomless pit, and from the pit rose a smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. The sun and the air grew dark because of the smoke from the pit.

In those days men 'will seek Death and will not find it'; They will long to die, but Death flees from them.

Then the sixth angel blew; and I heard a voice proceeding from the corners of the golden altar that stood before God.

Through these three Curses a third of mankind perished--because of the fire, and the smoke, and the sulphur that issued from their mouths;

But those who were left of mankind, who had not perished through these Curses, did not repent and turn away from what their own hands had made; they would not abandon the worship of 'demons, and of idols made of gold or silver or brass or stone or wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk';

Then I saw another mighty angel, descending from Heaven. His robe was a cloud; over his head was the rainbow; his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire;

And, when they spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from Heaven say-- 'Keep secret what the seven peals of thunder said, and do not write it down.'

Then came the voice which I had heard from Heaven. It spoke to me again, and said--'Go and take the book that is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.'

When any one wishes to harm them, 'fire comes from their mouths and consumes their enemies'; and whoever wishes to harm them will, in this way, inevitably perish.

As soon as they have completed their testimony, 'the wild Beast that ascends from the bottomless pit will make war upon them and conquer' and kill them.

The two men heard a loud voice from Heaven which said to them-- 'Come up here,' and they went up to Heaven in the cloud, while their enemies watched them.

Their victory was due to the Blood of the Lamb, and to the Message to which they bore their testimony. In their love of life they shrank not from death.

But to the woman were given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she might fly to her place in the wilderness, where she is being tended for 'one year, and for two years, and for half a year' in safety from the Serpent.