Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

THE SECOND LETTER OF JOHN

THE Elder to the chosen Lady and her children, whom I love in truth (and not I alone, but also all who have come to know the truth) for the sake of the truth which remains in us and will be with us forever:

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children living in truth, as we received command from the Father. And now I pray you, Lady, not as if writing a new command for you, but one that we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. This is love: to live by his commands. This is the command, as you heard from the beginning that you must live by it.

For many deceivers have come out into the world and they do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist.

Guard yourselves so as not to lose what we have worked for, but so that you may gain a full reward. Every one who goes forward and does not remain in the teaching of Christ is without God. He who remains in the teaching, he has the Father and the Son. If any one comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house and do not bid him welcome. He who bids him welcome becomes a sharer in his wicked works.

I have much to write to you, but I will not do it with paper and ink. I hope to be with you soon and to speak face to face so that our joy may be complete. The children of your chosen sister send greetings to you.

THE THIRD LETTER OF JOHN

THE Elder to Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth:

Beloved, I pray that in everything you may prosper and be in health, just as your soul now prospers. For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified to your truth that you are living in the truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are living in the truth.

Beloved, you do faithfully whatever work you do for the brethren, even when they are strangers, and they have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to help them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For it was for the Name that they came out, taking nothing from the Gentiles. We ought to help such men so as to be fellow workers with the truth.

I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who desires to be first among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come I will bring to mind the works that he is doing, accusing us with wicked words, and not satisfied with that, neither does he receive the brethren, and he hinders those who wish to do so and expels them from the church.

Beloved, do not imitate evil, but good. He who does good is of God. He who does evil has not seen God. Testimony has been borne to Demetrius by all and by the truth itself. We too bear testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.

I had much to write to you, but I will not write to you with ink and pen. But I hope to see you shortly, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends send greetings to you. Greet the friends by name.

THE LETTER OF JUDE

JUDE, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who are in God the Father, beloved, kept for Jesus Christ and called:

Mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

Beloved, although I have been making every effort to write to you regarding our common salvation, I now find it necessary to write and urge you to contend vigorously for the faith that was once for all delivered to the holy. For certain persons have crept in, who of old were written of as predestined to this doom, godless, changing the grace of our God into profligacy and disowning our only Ruler and Lord, Jesus Christ.

I wish to remind you, although you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people from the land of Egypt, then destroyed those who had no faith; and angels who did not keep their own rank, but left their own abode, he has kept for the judgment of the great day in everlasting chains under blackness of darkness. So Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, which in the same way gave themselves up to unchastity and the pursuit of unnatural vices, serve as an example while they undergo the punishment of eternal fire.

Just so these dreamers defile the flesh, reject government, and speak abusively of glorious beings. But Michael, the archangel, when in dispute with the Devil he was arguing about the body of Moses, did not venture to bring against him an abusive judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you." But these speak profanely of whatever they do not know, and all that physically as irrational animals they do understand, in these things they corrupt themselves. Alas for them! for they have traveled in the path of Cain, and for hire have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and have perished in the rebellious talk of Korah.

These are the hidden reefs in your love-feasts while they feast freely with you without fear, shepherds who care only

for themselves, waterless clouds driven by winds, trees in autumn fruitless, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, wandering stars for which the blackness of darkness is reserved forever.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these men when he said, "See, the Lord has come with ten thousand of his holy ones to do judgment upon all and to convict all the irreverent of all their deeds of irreverence which they have irreverently done, and of all the hard things which they have spoken against him, irreverent sinners that they are."

These men are complaining grumblers, living according to their own passions, and their mouths speak great swelling words. They show admiration for persons for the sake of their own gain.

But you, beloved, remember the words which were long ago spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that in the latter time there would be scoffers living according to their own ungodly passions. These are those who cause divisions, sensual and unspiritual.

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, must keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you into life eternal. On some have pity when they are in doubt; pull them out of the fire and save them. Others pity with fear, hating even the tunic spotted by the flesh.

To him who is able to guard you from falling and to make you stand faultless before his glory in great joy, to the only God our Savior, be, through Jesus Christ our Lord, glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and for all the ages! Amen.

THE REVELATION OF JOHN

I

A REVELATION of Jesus Christ which God gave to him, to make known to his servants things which must soon take place. He sent and made it known through his angel to his servant John, who bears witness to the message of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ-everything that he saw.

Blessed is he who reads, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep in mind what is written in it; for the time is near.

John to the seven Churches in Asia: Grace be to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits that are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to God his Father, to him be glory and power for the ages of the ages! Amen. He is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, even of those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will beat their breasts because of him. Yes, Amen.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who shall be, the Almighty."

I, John, your brother and fellow sharer in the distresses and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, came to the island called Patmos, for the sake of the message of God and the testimony of Jesus. I became in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, "What you see write in a book, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea." I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, and upon turning I saw seven golden lampstands and in the midst of

« ÎnapoiContinuă »