Bible in 90 Days

¹³ If you are wise, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don’t brag about them, then you will be truly wise! ¹⁴ And by all means don’t brag about being wise and good if you are bitter and jealous and selfish; that is the worst sort of lie. ¹⁵ For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, inspired by the devil. ¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.

¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere. ¹⁸ And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.

4 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it because there is a whole army of evil desires within you? ² You want what you don’t have, so you kill to get it. You long for what others have, and can’t afford it, so you start a fight to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. ³ And even when you do ask you don’t get it because your whole aim is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

⁴ You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God. ⁵ Or what do you think the Scripture means when it says that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, watches over us with tender jealousy? ⁶ But he gives us more and more strength to stand against all such evil longings. As the Scripture says, God gives strength to the humble but sets himself against the proud and haughty.

⁷ So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him. ⁹ Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and sincere grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. ¹⁰ Then when you realize your worthlessness before the Lord, he will lift you up, encourage and help you.

¹¹ Don’t criticize and speak evil about each other, dear brothers. If you do, you will be fighting against God’s law of loving one another, declaring it is wrong. But your job is not to decide whether this law is right or wrong, but to obey it. ¹² Only he who made the law can rightly judge among us. He alone decides to save us or destroy. So what right do you have to judge or criticize others?

¹³ Look here, you people who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to such and such a town, stay there a year, and open up a profitable business.” ¹⁴ How do you know what is going to happen tomorrow? For the length of your lives is as uncertain as the morning fog—now you see it; soon it is gone. ¹⁵ What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we shall live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ Otherwise you will be bragging about your own plans, and such self-confidence never pleases God.

¹⁷ Remember, too, that knowing what is right to do and then not doing it is sin.

5 Look here, you rich men, now is the time to cry and groan with anguished grief because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. ² Your wealth is even now rotting away, and your fine clothes are becoming mere moth-eaten rags. ³ The value of your gold and silver is dropping fast, yet it will stand as evidence against you and eat your flesh like fire. That is what you have stored up for yourselves to receive on that coming day of judgment. ⁴ For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. Their cries have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

⁵ You have spent your years here on earth having fun, satisfying your every whim, and now your fat hearts are ready for the slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and killed good men who had no power to defend themselves against you.

⁷ Now as for you, dear brothers who are waiting for the Lord’s return, be patient, like a farmer who waits until the autumn for his precious harvest to ripen. ⁸ Yes, be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.

⁹ Don’t grumble about each other, brothers. Are you yourselves above criticism? For see! The great Judge is coming. He is almost here. Let him do whatever criticizing must be done.^[a]

¹⁰ For examples of patience in suffering, look at the Lord’s prophets. ¹¹ We know how happy they are now because they stayed true to him then, even though they suffered greatly for it. Job is an example of a man who continued to trust the Lord in sorrow; from his experiences we can see how the Lord’s plan finally ended in good, for he is full of tenderness and mercy.

¹² But most of all, dear brothers, do not swear either by heaven or earth or anything else; just say a simple yes or no so that you will not sin and be condemned for it.

¹³ Is anyone among you suffering? He should keep on praying about it. And those who have reason to be thankful should continually be singing praises to the Lord.

¹⁴ Is anyone sick? He should call for the elders of the church and they should pray over him and pour a little oil upon him, calling on the Lord to heal him. ¹⁵ And their prayer, if offered in faith, will heal him, for the Lord will make him well; and if his sickness was caused by some sin, the Lord will forgive him.

¹⁶ Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results. ¹⁷ Elijah was as completely human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years! ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, this time that it would rain, and down it poured, and the grass turned green and the gardens began to grow again.

¹⁹ Dear brothers, if anyone has slipped away from God and no longer trusts the Lord and someone helps him understand the Truth again, ²⁰ that person who brings him back to God will have saved a wandering soul from death, bringing about the forgiveness of his many sins.

Sincerely, James

1 From: Peter, Jesus Christ’s missionary.

To: The Jewish Christians driven out of Jerusalem and scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and Bithynia.

² Dear friends, God the Father chose you long ago and knew you would become his children. And the Holy Spirit has been at work in your hearts, cleansing you with the blood of Jesus Christ and making you to please him. May God bless you richly and grant you increasing freedom from all anxiety and fear.

³ All honor to God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is his boundless mercy that has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God’s own family. Now we live in the hope of eternal life because Christ rose again from the dead. ⁴ And God has reserved for his children the priceless gift of eternal life; it is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. ⁵ And God, in his mighty power, will make sure that you get there safely to receive it because you are trusting him. It will be yours in that coming last day for all to see. ⁶ So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here.

⁷ These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of his return.

⁸ You love him even though you have never seen him; though not seeing him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with the inexpressible joy that comes from heaven itself. ⁹ And your further reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰ This salvation was something the prophets did not fully understand. Though they wrote about it, they had many questions as to what it all could mean. ¹¹ They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about, for he told them to write down the events which, since then, have happened to Christ: his suffering, and his great glory afterwards. And they wondered when and to whom all this would happen.

¹² They were finally told that these things would not occur during their lifetime, but long years later, during yours. And now at last this Good News has been plainly announced to all of us. It was preached to us in the power of the same heaven-sent Holy Spirit who spoke to them; and it is all so strange and wonderful that even the angels in heaven would give a great deal to know more about it.

¹³ So now you can look forward soberly and intelligently to more of God’s kindness to you when Jesus Christ returns.

¹⁴ Obey God because you are his children; don’t slip back into your old ways—doing evil because you knew no better. ¹⁵ But be holy now in everything you do, just as the Lord is holy, who invited you to be his child. ¹⁶ He himself has said, “You must be holy, for I am holy.”

¹⁷ And remember that your heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites when he judges. He will judge you with perfect justice for everything you do; so act in reverent fear of him from now on until you get to heaven. ¹⁸ God paid a ransom to save you from the impossible road to heaven which your fathers tried to take, and the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver as you very well know. ¹⁹ But he paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. ²⁰ God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but only recently was he brought into public view, in these last days, as a blessing to you.

²¹ Because of this, your trust can be in God who raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. Now your faith and hope can rest in him alone. ²² Now you can have real love for everyone because your souls have been cleansed from selfishness and hatred when you trusted Christ to save you; so see to it that you really do love each other warmly, with all your hearts.

²³ For you have a new life. It was not passed on to you from your parents, for the life they gave you will fade away. This new one will last forever, for it comes from Christ, God’s ever-living Message to men. ²⁴ Yes, our natural lives will fade as grass does when it becomes all brown and dry. All our greatness is like a flower that droops and falls; ²⁵ but the Word of the Lord will last forever. And his message is the Good News that was preached to you.

2 So get rid of your feelings of hatred. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with dishonesty and jealousy and talking about others behind their backs. ^2-3 Now that you realize how kind the Lord has been to you, put away all evil, deception, envy, and fraud. Long to grow up into the fullness of your salvation; cry for this as a baby cries for his milk.^[b]

⁴ Come to Christ, who is the living Foundation of Rock upon which God builds; though men have spurned him, he is very precious to God who has chosen him above all others.

⁵ And now you have become living building-stones for God’s use in building his house. What’s more, you are his holy priests; so come to him—you who are acceptable to him because of Jesus Christ^[c]—and offer to God those things that please him. ⁶ As the Scriptures express it, “See, I am sending Christ to be the carefully chosen, precious Cornerstone of my church, and I will never disappoint those who trust in him.”

⁷ Yes, he is very precious to you who believe; and to those who reject him, well—“The same Stone that was rejected by the builders has become the Cornerstone, the most honored and important part of the building.” ⁸ And the Scriptures also say, “He is the Stone that some will stumble over, and the Rock that will make them fall.” They will stumble because they will not listen to God’s Word nor obey it, and so this punishment must follow—that they will fall.

⁹ But you are not like that, for you have been chosen by God himself—you are priests of the King, you are holy and pure, you are God’s very own—all this so that you may show to others how God called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were less than nothing; now you are God’s own. Once you knew very little of God’s kindness; now your very lives have been changed by it.

¹¹ Dear brothers, you are only visitors here. Since your real home is in heaven, I beg you to keep away from the evil pleasures of this world; they are not for you, for they fight against your very souls.

¹² Be careful how you behave among your unsaved neighbors; for then, even if they are suspicious of you and talk against you, they will end up praising God for your good works when Christ returns.

¹³ For the Lord’s sake, obey every law of your government: those of the king as head of the state, ¹⁴ and those of the king’s officers, for he has sent them to punish all who do wrong, and to honor those who do right.

¹⁵ It is God’s will that your good lives should silence those who foolishly condemn the Gospel without knowing what it can do for them, having never experienced its power. ¹⁶ You are free from the law, but that doesn’t mean you are free to do wrong. Live as those who are free to do only God’s will at all times.

¹⁷ Show respect for everyone. Love Christians everywhere. Fear God and honor the government.

¹⁸ Servants, you must respect your masters and do whatever they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are tough and cruel. ¹⁹ Praise the Lord if you are punished for doing right! ²⁰ Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong; but if you do right and suffer for it, and are patient beneath the blows, God is well pleased.

²¹ This suffering is all part of the work God has given you. Christ, who suffered for you, is your example. Follow in his steps: ²² He never sinned, never told a lie, ²³ never answered back when insulted; when he suffered he did not threaten to get even; he left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly. ²⁴ He personally carried the load of our sins in his own body when he died on the cross so that we can be finished with sin and live a good life from now on. For his wounds have healed ours! ²⁵ Like sheep you wandered away from God, but now you have returned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls who keeps you safe from all attacks.

3 ^1-2 Wives, fit in with your husbands’ plans; for then if they refuse to listen when you talk to them about the Lord, they will be won by your respectful, pure behavior. Your godly lives will speak to them better than any words.

³ Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on jewelry, or beautiful clothes, or hair arrangement. ⁴ Be beautiful inside, in your hearts, with the lasting charm of a gentle and quiet spirit that is so precious to God. ⁵ That kind of deep beauty was seen in the saintly women of old, who trusted God and fitted in with their husbands’ plans.

⁶ Sarah, for instance, obeyed her husband Abraham, honoring him as head of the house. And if you do the same, you will be following in her steps like good daughters and doing what is right; then you will not need to fear offending your husbands.^[d]

⁷ You husbands must be careful of your wives, being thoughtful of their needs and honoring them as the weaker sex. Remember that you and your wife are partners in receiving God’s blessings, and if you don’t treat her as you should, your prayers will not get ready answers.

⁸ And now this word to all of you: You should be like one big happy family, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds. ⁹ Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t snap back at those who say unkind things about you. Instead, pray for God’s help for them, for we are to be kind to others, and God will bless us for it.

¹⁰ If you want a happy, good life, keep control of your tongue, and guard your lips from telling lies. ¹¹ Turn away from evil and do good. Try to live in peace even if you must run after it to catch and hold it! ¹² For the Lord is watching his children, listening to their prayers; but the Lord’s face is hard against those who do evil.

¹³ Usually no one will hurt you for wanting to do good. ¹⁴ But even if they should, you are to be envied, for God will reward you for it. ¹⁵ Quietly trust yourself to Christ your Lord, and if anybody asks why you believe as you do, be ready to tell him, and do it in a gentle and respectful way.

¹⁶ Do what is right; then if men speak against you, calling you evil names, they will become ashamed of themselves for falsely accusing you when you have only done what is good. ¹⁷ Remember, if God wants you to suffer, it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong!

¹⁸ Christ also suffered. He died once for the sins of all us guilty sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, ¹⁹ and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them— ²⁰ spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. Yet only eight persons were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. ²¹ (That, by the way, is what baptism pictures for us: In baptism we show that we have been saved from death and doom by the resurrection of Christ;^[e] not because our bodies are washed clean by the water but because in being baptized we are turning to God and asking him to cleanse our hearts from sin.) ²² And now Christ is in heaven, sitting in the place of honor next to God the Father, with all the angels and powers of heaven bowing before him and obeying him.

4 Since Christ suffered and underwent pain, you must have the same attitude he did; you must be ready to suffer, too. For remember, when your body suffers, sin loses its power, ² and you won’t be spending the rest of your life chasing after evil desires but will be anxious to do the will of God. ³ You have had enough in the past of the evil things the godless enjoy—sex sin, lust, getting drunk, wild parties, drinking bouts, and the worship of idols, and other terrible sins.^[f]

⁴ Of course, your former friends will be very surprised when you don’t eagerly join them anymore in the wicked things they do, and they will laugh at you in contempt and scorn. ⁵ But just remember that they must face the Judge of all, living and dead; they will be punished for the way they have lived. ⁶ That is why the Good News was preached even to those who were dead—killed by the flood^[g]—so that although their bodies were punished with death, they could still live in their spirits as God lives.

⁷ The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore be earnest, thoughtful men of prayer. ⁸ Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love makes up for many of your faults.^{[h] 9} Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay for the night.

¹⁰ God has given each of you some special abilities; be sure to use them to help each other, passing on to others God’s many kinds of blessings. ¹¹ Are you called to preach? Then preach as though God himself were speaking through you. Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies so that God will be glorified through Jesus Christ—to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

¹² Dear friends, don’t be bewildered or surprised when you go through the fiery trials ahead, for this is no strange, unusual thing that is going to happen to you. ¹³ Instead, be really glad—because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterwards you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory in that coming day when it will be displayed.

¹⁴ Be happy if you are cursed and insulted for being a Christian, for when that happens the Spirit of God will come upon you with great glory.^{[i] 15} Don’t let me hear of your suffering for murdering or stealing or making trouble or being a busybody and prying into other people’s affairs. ¹⁶ But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being in Christ’s family and being called by his wonderful name! ¹⁷ For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God’s own children. And if even we who are Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed in the Lord? ¹⁸ If the righteous are barely saved, what chance will the godless have?

¹⁹ So if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you.

5 And now, a word to you elders of the church. I, too, am an elder; with my own eyes I saw Christ dying on the cross; and I, too, will share his glory and his honor when he returns. Fellow elders, this is my plea to you: ² Feed the flock of God; care for it willingly, not grudgingly; not for what you will get out of it but because you are eager to serve the Lord. ³ Don’t be tyrants, but lead them by your good example, ⁴ and when the Head Shepherd comes, your reward will be a never-ending share in his glory and honor.

⁵ You younger men, follow the leadership of those who are older. And all of you serve each other with humble spirits, for God gives special blessings to those who are humble, but sets himself against those who are proud. ⁶ If you will humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, in his good time he will lift you up.

⁷ Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.

⁸ Be careful—watch out for attacks from Satan, your great enemy. He prowls around like a hungry, roaring lion, looking for some victim to tear apart. ⁹ Stand firm when he attacks. Trust the Lord; and remember that other Christians all around the world are going through these sufferings too.

¹⁰ After you have suffered a little while, our God, who is full of kindness through Christ, will give you his eternal glory. He personally will come and pick you up, and set you firmly in place, and make you stronger than ever. ¹¹ To him be all power over all things, forever and ever. Amen.

¹² I am sending this note to you through the courtesy of Silvanus who is, in my opinion, a very faithful brother. I hope I have encouraged you by this letter, for I have given you a true statement of the way God blesses. What I have told you here should help you to stand firmly in his love.

¹³ The church here in Rome^[j]—she is your sister in the Lord—sends you her greetings; so does my son Mark. ¹⁴ Give each other the handshake of Christian love. Peace be to all of you who are in Christ.

Peter

1 From: Simon Peter, a servant and missionary of Jesus Christ.

To: All of you who have our kind of faith. The faith I speak of is the kind that Jesus Christ our God and Savior gives to us. How precious it is, and how just and good he is to give this same faith to each of us.

² Do you want more and more of God’s kindness and peace? Then learn to know him better and better. ³ For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life: he even shares his own glory and his own goodness with us! ⁴ And by that same mighty power he has given us all the other rich and wonderful blessings he promised; for instance, the promise to save us from the lust and rottenness all around us, and to give us his own character.

⁵ But to obtain these gifts, you need more than faith; you must also work hard to be good, and even that is not enough. For then you must learn to know God better and discover what he wants you to do. ⁶ Next, learn to put aside your own desires so that you will become patient and godly, gladly letting God have his way with you. ⁷ This will make possible the next step, which is for you to enjoy other people and to like them, and finally you will grow to love them deeply. ⁸ The more you go on in this way, the more you will grow strong spiritually and become fruitful and useful to our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But anyone who fails to go after these additions to faith is blind indeed, or at least very shortsighted and has forgotten that God delivered him from the old life of sin so that now he can live a strong, good life for the Lord.

¹⁰ So, dear brothers, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen, and then you will never stumble or fall away. ¹¹ And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

¹² I plan to keep on reminding you of these things even though you already know them and are really getting along quite well! ^13-14 But the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that my days here on earth are numbered, and I am soon to die. As long as I am still here I intend to keep sending these reminders to you, ¹⁵ hoping to impress them so clearly upon you that you will remember them long after I have gone.

¹⁶ For we have not been telling you fairy tales when we explained to you the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. My own eyes have seen his splendor and his glory: ^17-18 I was there on the holy mountain when he shone out with honor given him by God his Father; I heard that glorious, majestic voice calling down from heaven, saying, “This is my much-loved Son; I am well pleased with him.”

¹⁹ So we have seen and proved that what the prophets said came true. You will do well to pay close attention to everything they have written, for, like lights shining into dark corners, their words help us to understand many things that otherwise would be dark and difficult. But when you consider the wonderful truth of the prophets’ words, then the light will dawn in your souls and Christ the Morning Star will shine in your hearts. ^20-21 For no prophecy recorded in Scripture was ever thought up by the prophet himself. It was the Holy Spirit within these godly men who gave them true messages from God.

2 But there were false prophets, too, in those days, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly tell their lies about God, turning against even their Master who bought them; but theirs will be a swift and terrible end. ² Many will follow their evil teaching that there is nothing wrong with sexual sin. And because of them Christ and his way will be scoffed at.

³ These teachers in their greed will tell you anything to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago and their destruction is on the way. ⁴ For God did not spare even the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell, chained in gloomy caves and darkness until the judgment day. ⁵ And he did not spare any of the people who lived in ancient times before the flood except Noah, the one man who spoke up for God, and his family of seven. At that time God completely destroyed the whole world of ungodly men with the vast flood. ⁶ Later, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes and blotted them off the face of the earth, making them an example for all the ungodly in the future to look back upon and fear.

^7-8 But at the same time the Lord rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a good man, sick of the terrible wickedness he saw everywhere around him day after day. ⁹ So also the Lord can rescue you and me from the temptations that surround us, and continue to punish the ungodly until the day of final judgment comes. ¹⁰ He is especially hard on those who follow their own evil, lustful thoughts, and those who are proud and willful, daring even to scoff at the Glorious Ones^[k] without so much as trembling, ¹¹ although the angels in heaven who stand in the very presence of the Lord, and are far greater in power and strength than these false teachers, never speak out disrespectfully against these evil Mighty Ones.

¹² But false teachers are fools—no better than animals. They do whatever they feel like; born only to be caught and killed, they laugh at the terrifying powers of the underworld which they know so little about;^[l] and they will be destroyed along with all the demons and powers of hell.

¹³ That is the pay these teachers will have for their sin. For they live in evil pleasures day after day. They are a disgrace and a stain among you, deceiving you by living in foul sin on the side while they join your love feasts as though they were honest men. ¹⁴ No woman can escape their sinful stare, and of adultery they never have enough. They make a game of luring unstable women. They train themselves to be greedy; and are doomed and cursed. ¹⁵ They have gone off the road and become lost like Balaam, the son of Beor, who fell in love with the money he could make by doing wrong; ¹⁶ but Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey spoke to him with a human voice, scolding and rebuking him.

¹⁷ These men are as useless as dried-up springs of water, promising much and delivering nothing; they are as unstable as clouds driven by the storm winds. They are doomed to the eternal pits of darkness. ¹⁸ They proudly boast about their sins and conquests, and, using lust as their bait, they lure back into sin those who have just escaped from such wicked living.

¹⁹ “You aren’t saved by being good,” they say, “so you might as well be bad. Do what you like; be free.”

But these very teachers who offer this “freedom” from law are themselves slaves to sin and destruction. For a man is a slave to whatever controls him. ²⁰ And when a person has escaped from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then gets tangled up with sin and becomes its slave again, he is worse off than he was before. ²¹ It would be better if he had never known about Christ at all than to learn of him and then afterwards turn his back on the holy commandments that were given to him. ²² There is an old saying that “A dog comes back to what he has vomited, and a pig is washed only to come back and wallow in the mud again.” That is the way it is with those who turn again to their sin.

3 ^1-2 This is my second letter to you, dear brothers, and in both of them I have tried to remind you—if you will let me—about facts you already know: facts you learned from the holy prophets and from us apostles who brought you the words of our Lord and Savior.

³ First, I want to remind you that in the last days there will come scoffers who will do every wrong they can think of and laugh at the truth. ⁴ This will be their line of argument: “So Jesus promised to come back, did he? Then where is he? He’ll never come! Why, as far back as anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly as it was since the first day of creation.”

^5-6 They deliberately forget this fact: that God did destroy the world with a mighty flood long after he had made the heavens by the word of his command and had used the waters to form the earth and surround it. ⁷ And God has commanded that the earth and the heavens be stored away for a great bonfire at the judgment day, when all ungodly men will perish.

⁸ But don’t forget this, dear friends, that a day or a thousand years from now is like tomorrow to the Lord. ⁹ He isn’t really being slow about his promised return, even though it sometimes seems that way. But he is waiting, for the good reason that he is not willing that any should perish, and he is giving more time for sinners to repent. ¹⁰ The day of the Lord is surely coming, as unexpectedly as a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the heavenly bodies will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be burned up.

¹¹ And so since everything around us is going to melt away, what holy, godly lives we should be living! ¹² You should look forward to that day and hurry it along—the day when God will set the heavens on fire, and the heavenly bodies will melt and disappear in flames. ¹³ But we are looking forward to God’s promise of new heavens and a new earth afterwards, where there will be only goodness.^[m]

¹⁴ Dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen and for him to come, try hard to live without sinning; and be at peace with everyone so that he will be pleased with you when he returns.

^15-16 And remember why he is waiting. He is giving us time to get his message of salvation out to others. Our wise and beloved brother Paul has talked about these same things in many of his letters. Some of his comments are not easy to understand, and there are people who are deliberately stupid, and always demand some unusual interpretation—they have twisted his letters around to mean something quite different from what he meant, just as they do the other parts of the Scripture—and the result is disaster for them.

¹⁷ I am warning you ahead of time, dear brothers, so that you can watch out and not be carried away by the mistakes of these wicked men, lest you yourselves become mixed up too. ¹⁸ But grow in spiritual strength and become better acquainted with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be all glory and splendid honor, both now and forevermore. Good-bye.

Peter

1 Christ was alive when the world began, yet I myself have seen him with my own eyes and listened to him speak. I have touched him with my own hands. He is God’s message of life. ² This one who is life from God has been shown to us, and we guarantee that we have seen him; I am speaking of Christ, who is eternal Life. He was with the Father and then was shown to us. ³ Again I say, we are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may share the fellowship and the joys we have with the Father and with Jesus Christ his son. ⁴ And if you do as I say in this letter, then you, too, will be full of joy, and so will we.

⁵ This is the message God has given us to pass on to you: that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ So if we say we are his friends but go on living in spiritual darkness and sin, we are lying. ⁷ But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. ⁹ But if we confess our sins to him,^[n] he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we are lying and calling God a liar, for he says we have sinned.

2 My little children, I am telling you this so that you will stay away from sin. But if you sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. His name is Jesus Christ, the one who is all that is good and who pleases God completely. ² He is the one who took God’s wrath against our sins upon himself and brought us into fellowship with God; and he is the forgiveness for our sins,^[o] and not only ours but all the world’s.

³ And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By looking within ourselves: are we really trying to do what he wants us to?

⁴ Someone may say, “I am a Christian; I am on my way to heaven; I belong to Christ.” But if he doesn’t do what Christ tells him to, he is a liar. ⁵ But those who do what Christ tells them to will learn to love God more and more. That is the way to know whether or not you are a Christian. ⁶ Anyone who says he is a Christian should live as Christ did.

⁷ Dear brothers, I am not writing out a new rule for you to obey, for it is an old one you have always had, right from the start. You have heard it all before. ⁸ Yet it is always new, and works for you just as it did for Christ; and as we obey this commandment, to love one another, the darkness in our lives disappears and the new light of life in Christ shines in.

⁹ Anyone who says he is walking in the light of Christ but dislikes his fellow man is still in darkness. ¹⁰ But whoever loves his fellow man is “walking in the light” and can see his way without stumbling around in darkness and sin. ¹¹ For he who dislikes his brother is wandering in spiritual darkness and doesn’t know where he is going, for the darkness has made him blind so that he cannot see the way.

¹² I am writing these things to all of you, my little children, because your sins have been forgiven in the name of Jesus our Savior. ¹³ I am saying these things to you older men because you really know Christ, the one who has been alive from the beginning. And you young men, I am talking to you because you have won your battle with Satan. And I am writing to you younger boys and girls because you, too, have learned to know God our Father.

¹⁴ And so I say to you fathers who know the eternal God, and to you young men who are strong with God’s Word in your hearts, and have won your struggle against Satan: ¹⁵ Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; ¹⁶ for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever.

¹⁸ Dear children, this world’s last hour has come. You have heard about the Antichrist who is coming—the one who is against Christ—and already many such persons have appeared. This makes us all the more certain that the end of the world is near. ¹⁹ These “against-Christ” people used to be members of our churches, but they never really belonged with us or else they would have stayed. When they left us it proved that they were not of us at all.

²⁰ But you are not like that, for the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you know the truth. ²¹ So I am not writing to you as to those who need to know the truth, but I warn you as those who can discern the difference between true and false.

²² And who is the greatest liar? The one who says that Jesus is not Christ. Such a person is antichrist, for he does not believe in God the Father and in his Son. ²³ For a person who doesn’t believe in Christ, God’s Son, can’t have God the Father either. But he who has Christ, God’s Son, has God the Father also.

²⁴ So keep on believing what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will always be in close fellowship with both God the Father and his Son. ²⁵ And he himself has promised us this: eternal life.

²⁶ These remarks of mine about the Antichrist are pointed at those who would dearly love to blindfold you and lead you astray. ²⁷ But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, in your hearts, so that you don’t need anyone to teach you what is right. For he teaches you all things, and he is the Truth, and no liar; and so, just as he has said, you must live in Christ, never to depart from him.

²⁸ And now, my little children, stay in happy fellowship with the Lord so that when he comes you will be sure that all is well and will not have to be ashamed and shrink back from meeting him. ²⁹ Since we know that God is always good and does only right, we may rightly assume that all those who do right are his children.

3 See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children—think of it—and we really are! But since most people don’t know God, naturally they don’t understand that we are his children. ² Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, right now, and we can’t even imagine what it is going to be like later on. But we do know this, that when he comes we will be like him, as a result of seeing him as he really is. ³ And everyone who really believes this will try to stay pure because Christ is pure.

⁴ But those who keep on sinning are against God, for every sin is done against the will of God. ⁵ And you know that he became a man so that he could take away our sins, and that there is no sin in him, no missing of God’s will at any time in any way. ⁶ So if we stay close to him, obedient to him, we won’t be sinning either; but as for those who keep on sinning, they should realize this: They sin because they have never really known him or become his.

⁷ Oh, dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: if you are constantly doing what is good, it is because you are good, even as he is. ⁸ But if you keep on sinning, it shows that you belong to Satan, who since he first began to sin has kept steadily at it. But the Son of God came to destroy these works of the devil. ⁹ The person who has been born into God’s family does not make a practice of sinning because now God’s life is in him; so he can’t keep on sinning, for this new life has been born into him and controls him—he has been born again.

¹⁰ So now we can tell who is a child of God and who belongs to Satan. Whoever is living a life of sin and doesn’t love his brother shows that he is not in God’s family; ¹¹ for the message to us from the beginning has been that we should love one another.

¹² We are not to be like Cain, who belonged to Satan and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing wrong and he knew very well that his brother’s life was better than his. ¹³ So don’t be surprised, dear friends, if the world hates you.

¹⁴ If we love other Christians, it proves that we have been delivered from hell and given eternal life. But a person who doesn’t have love for others is headed for eternal death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates his Christian brother is really a murderer at heart; and you know that no one wanting to murder has eternal life within. ¹⁶ We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.

¹⁷ But if someone who is supposed to be a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in need, and won’t help him—how can God’s love be within him? ¹⁸ Little children, let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it by our actions. ¹⁹ Then we will know for sure, by our actions, that we are on God’s side, and our consciences will be clear, even when we stand before the Lord. ²⁰ But if we have bad consciences and feel that we have done wrong, the Lord will surely feel it even more,^[p] for he knows everything we do.

²¹ But, dearly loved friends, if our consciences are clear, we can come to the Lord with perfect assurance and trust, ²² and get whatever we ask for because we are obeying him and doing the things that please him. ²³ And this is what God says we must do: Believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another. ²⁴ Those who do what God says—they are living with God and he with them. We know this is true because the Holy Spirit he has given us tells us so.

4 Dearly loved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear just because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is. For there are many false teachers around, ² and the way to find out if their message is from the Holy Spirit is to ask: Does it really agree that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, actually became man with a human body? If so, then the message is from God. ³ If not, the message is not from God but from one who is against Christ, like the “Antichrist” you have heard about who is going to come, and his attitude of enmity against Christ is already abroad in the world.

⁴ Dear young friends, you belong to God and have already won your fight with those who are against Christ because there is someone in your hearts who is stronger than any evil teacher in this wicked world. ⁵ These men belong to this world, so, quite naturally, they are concerned about worldly affairs and the world pays attention to them. ⁶ But we are children of God; that is why only those who have walked and talked with God will listen to us. Others won’t. That is another way to know whether a message is really from God; for if it is, the world won’t listen to it.

⁷ Dear friends, let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God, and that they are getting to know him better. ⁸ But if a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that he doesn’t know God—for God is love.

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to us eternal life through his death. ¹⁰ In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God but his love for us when he sent his Son to satisfy God’s anger against our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other too. ¹² For though we have never yet seen God, when we love each other God lives in us, and his love within us grows ever stronger. ¹³ And he has put his own Holy Spirit into our hearts as a proof to us that we are living with him and he with us. ¹⁴ And furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now tell all the world that God sent his Son to be their Savior. ¹⁵ Anyone who believes and says that Jesus is the Son of God has God living in him, and he is living with God.

¹⁶ We know how much God loves us because we have felt his love and because we believe him when he tells us that he loves us dearly. God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. ¹⁷ And as we live with Christ, our love grows more perfect and complete; so we will not be ashamed and embarrassed at the day of judgment, but can face him with confidence and joy because he loves us and we love him too.

¹⁸ We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us. ¹⁹ So you see, our love for him comes as a result of his loving us first.

²⁰ If anyone says “I love God,” but keeps on hating his brother, he is a liar; for if he doesn’t love his brother who is right there in front of him, how can he love God whom he has never seen? ²¹ And God himself has said that one must love not only God but his brother too.

5 If you believe that Jesus is the Christ—that he is God’s Son and your Savior—then you are a child of God. And all who love the Father love his children too. ² So you can find out how much you love God’s children—your brothers and sisters in the Lord—by how much you love and obey God. ³ Loving God means doing what he tells us to do, and really, that isn’t hard at all; ⁴ for every child of God can obey him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him.

⁵ But who could possibly fight and win this battle except by believing that Jesus is truly the Son of God? ^6-8 And we know he is, because God said so with a voice from heaven when Jesus was baptized, and again as he was facing death^[q]—yes, not only at his baptism but also as he faced death. And the Holy Spirit, forever truthful, says it too. So we have these three witnesses: the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the voice from heaven at Christ’s baptism, and the voice before he died. And they all say the same thing: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. ⁹ We believe men who witness in our courts, and so surely we can believe whatever God declares. And God declares that Jesus is his Son. ¹⁰ All who believe this know in their hearts that it is true. If anyone doesn’t believe this, he is actually calling God a liar because he doesn’t believe what God has said about his Son.

¹¹ And what is it that God has said? That he has given us eternal life and that this life is in his Son. ¹² So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son, does not have life.

¹³ I have written this to you who believe in the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life. ¹⁴ And we are sure of this, that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. ¹⁵ And if we really know he is listening when we talk to him and make our requests, then we can be sure that he will answer us.

¹⁶ If you see a Christian sinning in a way that does not end in death, you should ask God to forgive him, and God will give him life unless he has sinned that one fatal sin. But there is that one sin which ends in death, and if he has done that, there is no use praying for him. ¹⁷ Every wrong is a sin, of course. I’m not talking about these ordinary sins; I am speaking of that one that ends in death.^[r]

¹⁸ No one who has become part of God’s family makes a practice of sinning, for Christ, God’s Son, holds him securely, and the devil cannot get his hands on him. ¹⁹ We know that we are children of God and that all the rest of the world around us is under Satan’s power and control. ²⁰ And we know that Christ, God’s Son, has come to help us understand and find the true God. And now we are in God because we are in Jesus Christ his Son, who is the only true God; and he is eternal Life.

²¹ Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts. Amen.

Sincerely, John

¹ From: John, the old Elder of the church.

To: That dear woman Cyria, one of God’s very own, and to her children whom I love so much, as does everyone else in the church. ² Since the Truth is in our hearts forever, ³ God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son will bless us with great mercy and much peace, and with truth and love.

⁴ How happy I am to find some of your children here and to see that they are living as they should, following the Truth, obeying God’s command.

⁵ And now I want to urgently remind you, dear friends, of the old rule God gave us right from the beginning, that Christians should love one another. ⁶ If we love God, we will do whatever he tells us to. And he has told us from the very first to love each other.

⁷ Watch out for the false leaders—and there are many of them around—who don’t believe that Jesus Christ came to earth as a human being with a body like ours. Such people are against the truth and against Christ. ⁸ Beware of being like them and losing the prize that you and I have been working so hard to get. See to it that you win your full reward from the Lord. ⁹ For if you wander beyond the teaching of Christ, you will leave God behind; while if you are loyal to Christ’s teachings, you will have God too. Then you will have both the Father and the Son.

¹⁰ If anyone comes to teach you, and he doesn’t believe what Christ taught, don’t even invite him into your home. Don’t encourage him in any way. ¹¹ If you do, you will be a partner with him in his wickedness.

¹² Well, I would like to say much more, but I don’t want to say it in this letter, for I hope to come to see you soon, and then we can talk over these things together and have a joyous time.

¹³ Greetings from the children of your sister—another choice child of God.

Sincerely, John

¹ From: John, the Elder.

To: Dear Gaius, whom I truly love.

² Dear friend, I am praying that all is well with you and that your body is as healthy as I know your soul is. ³ Some of the brothers traveling by have made me very happy by telling me that your life stays clean and true and that you are living by the standards of the Gospel. ⁴ I could have no greater joy than to hear such things about my children.

⁵ Dear friend, you are doing a good work for God in taking care of the traveling teachers and missionaries who are passing through. ⁶ They have told the church here of your friendship and your loving deeds. I am glad when you send them on their way with a generous gift. ⁷ For they are traveling for the Lord and take neither food, clothing, shelter, nor money from those who are not Christians, even though they have preached to them. ⁸ So we ourselves should take care of them in order that we may become partners with them in the Lord’s work.

⁹ I sent a brief letter to the church about this, but proud Diotrephes, who loves to push himself forward as the leader of the Christians there, does not admit my authority over him and refuses to listen to me. ¹⁰ When I come I will tell you some of the things he is doing and what wicked things he is saying about me and what insulting language he is using. He not only refuses to welcome the missionary travelers himself but tells others not to, and when they do he tries to put them out of the church.

¹¹ Dear friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do what is right prove that they are God’s children; and those who continue in evil prove that they are far from God. ¹² But everyone, including Truth itself, speaks highly of Demetrius. I myself can say the same for him, and you know I speak the truth.

¹³ I have much to say, but I don’t want to write it, ¹⁴ for I hope to see you soon and then we will have much to talk about together. ¹⁵ So good-bye for now. Friends here send their love, and please give each of the folks there a special greeting from me.

Sincerely, John