but Christ was faithful as a Son having authority over God's house, and we are that house, if we hold firm to the End the boldness and the hope which we boast of as ours.
Notice therefore God's kindness and God's severity. On those who have fallen His severity has descended, but upon you His kindness has come, provided that you do not cease to respond to that kindness. Otherwise you will be cut off also.
May God, the giver of hope, fill you with continual joy and peace because you trust in Him–so that you may have abundant hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
through whom also, as the result of faith, we have obtained an introduction into that state of favour with God in which we stand, and we exult in hope of some day sharing in God's glory.
And what compact has the Temple of God with idols? For we are the Temple of the ever-living God; as God has said, »I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; and will be their God, and it is they who shall be My people.«
if, indeed, you are still firmly holding to faith as your foundation, without ever shifting from your hope that rests on the Good News that you have heard, which has been proclaimed in the whole creation under Heaven, and in which I Paul have been appointed to serve.
But, for fear I may be hindered, I now write, so that you may have rules to guide you in dealing with God's household. For this is what the Church of the ever-living God is, and it is the pillar and foundation-stone of the truth.
Inasmuch, then, as we have in Jesus, the Son of God, a great High Priest who has passed into Heaven itself, let us hold firmly to our profession of faith.
He added an oath, in order that, through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for Him to prove false, we may possess mighty encouragement–we who, for safety, have hastened to lay hold of the hope set before us.
Him you love, though your eyes have never looked on Him. In Him, though at present you cannot see Him, you nevertheless trust, and triumph with a joy which is unspeakable and is crowned with glory,
And be yourselves also like living stones that are being built up into a spiritual house, to become a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For the time has come for judgement to begin, and to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who reject God's Good News?
»To the minister of the Church at Thyateira write as follows:« `This is what the Son of God says–He who has eyes like a flame of fire, and feet resembling silver-bronze.