Study Desk

And now, dear lady, I pray you--writing to you, as I do, not a new command, but the one which we have had from the very beginning--let us love one another.

Keep guard over yourselves, so that you may not lose the results of your good deeds, but may receive back a full reward.

No one has God, who instead of remaining true to the teaching of Christ, presses on in advance: but he who remains true to that teaching has both the Father and the Son.

I have a great deal to say to you all, but will not write it with paper and ink. Yet I hope to come to see you and speak face to face, so that your happiness may be complete.

I wrote to the Church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the first place among them, refuses to listen to us.

For this reason, if I come, I shall not forget his conduct, nor his idle and mischievous talk against us. And he does not stop there: he not only will not receive the brethren, but those who desire to do this he hinders, and excludes them from the Church.

My dear friend, do not follow wrong examples, but right ones. He who habitually does what is right is a child of God: he who habitually does what is wrong has not seen God.

I have a great deal to say to you, but I do not wish to go on writing it with ink and pen.

I desire to remind you--although the whole matter is already familiar to you--that the Lord saved a people out of the land of Egypt, but afterwards destroyed those who had no faith.

And angels--those who did not keep the position originally assigned to them, but deserted their own proper abode--He reserves in everlasting bonds, in darkness, in preparation for the judgement of the great day.

But Michael the Archangel, when contending with the Devil and arguing with him about the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce judgement on him in abusive terms, but simply said, "The Lord rebuke you."

But as for you, my dearly-loved friends, remember the words that before now were spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ--

But you, my dearly-loved friends, building yourselves up on the basis of your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,

But to Him who is able to keep you safe from stumbling, and cause you to stand in the presence of His glory free from blemish and full of exultant joy--

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as if I were dead. But He laid His right hand upon me and said, "Do not be afraid: I am the First and the Last, and the ever-living One.

I died; but I am now alive until the Ages of the Ages, and I have the keys of the gates of Death and of Hades!

I know your doings and your toil and patient suffering. And I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, but have put to the test those who say that they themselves are Apostles but are not, and you have found them to be liars.

Your sufferings I know, and your poverty--but you are rich--and the evil name given you by those who say that they themselves are Jews, and are not, but are Satan's synagogue.

I have given her time to repent, but she is determined not to repent of her fornication.

But to you, the rest of you in Thyateira, all who do not hold this teaching and are not the people who have learnt the "deep things," as they call them (the deep things of Satan!) --to you I say that I lay no other burden on you.