By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

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 because I have found some of your children living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded us.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. This person is the deceiver and the antichrist!

But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend.

Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and blessed are those who hear and obey the things written in it, because the time is near!

“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write the following: “This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who is the first and the last, the one who was dead, but came to life:

“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write the following: “This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who has the sharp double-edged sword:

Therefore, repent! If not, I will come against you quickly and make war against those people with the sword of my mouth.

he will rule them with an iron rod and like clay jars he will break them to pieces,

and in front of the throne was something like a sea of glass, like crystal. In the middle of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.

And I saw a powerful angel proclaiming in a loud voice: “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals?”

But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it.

and a third of the creatures living in the sea died, and a third of the ships were completely destroyed.

They have tails and stingers like scorpions, and their ability to injure people for five months is in their tails.

They have as king over them the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

Then a measuring rod like a staff was given to me, and I was told, “Get up and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and the ones who worship there.

So the beast opened his mouth to blaspheme against God – to blaspheme both his name and his dwelling place, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was permitted to scorch people with fire.