Blessed are you when people taunt you, and persecute you, and say everything evil about you--untruly, and on my account.

Be glad and rejoice, because your reward in Heaven will be great; for so men persecuted the Prophets who lived before you.

And if children, then heirs-heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, since we share Christ's sufferings in order that we may also share his Glory.

If we continue to endure, we shall also share his throne. If we should ever disown him, he, too, will disown us.

For you not only sympathized with those who were in prison, but you even took the confiscation of your possessions joyfully, knowing, as you did, that you had in yourselves a greater possession and a lasting one.

For he counted 'the reproaches that are heaped upon the Christ' of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, looking forward, as he did, to the reward awaiting him.

Then I saw thrones, and to those who took their seats upon them authority was given to act as judges. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony to Jesus and because of the Message of God, for they had refused to worship the Beast or its image, and had not received the brand on their foreheads and on their hands. They were restored to life, and they reigned with the Christ for a thousand years.