and to Andronicus and Junia, my countrymen, who once shared my imprisonment. They are of note among the Apostles, and are Christians of longer standing than myself.
And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead is dwelling in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead will give Life also to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who dwells in you.
But you –and it is all God's doing– are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance;
Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.) Much more am I His servant; serving Him more thoroughly than they by my labours, and more thoroughly also by my imprisonments, by excessively cruel floggings, and with risk of life many a time.
I know a Christian man who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows– was caught up (this man of whom I am speaking) even to the highest Heaven.
I went up in obedience to a revelation of God's will; and I explained to them the Good News which I proclaim among the Gentiles. To the leaders of the Church this explanation was made in private, lest by any means I should be running, or should already have run, in vain.
From those leaders I gained nothing new. Whether they were men of importance or not, matters nothing to me–God recognizes no external distinctions. To me, at any rate, the leaders imparted nothing new.
Aristarchus my fellow prisoner sends greeting to you, and so does Barnabas's cousin Mark. You have received instructions as to him; if he comes to you, give him a welcome.
We can know that we are continuing in union with Him and that He is continuing in union with us, by the fact that He has given us a portion of His Spirit.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we know the true One, and are in union with the true One–that is, we are in union with His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and the Life of the Ages.
I John, your brother, and a sharer with you in the sorrows and Kingship and patient endurance of Jesus, found myself in the island of Patmos, on account of the Word of God and the truth told us by Jesus.