other religions

⁵They are of the world. Therefore, they speak about the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are of God. Whoever knows God, listens to us. Whoever is not of God, does not listen to us. In this way, we know the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error. ⁷Most beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love, does not know God. For God is love.

⁶Jesus said to him: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

⁵For although there are things that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, (if one even considers there to be many gods and many lords) ⁶yet we know that there is only one God, the Father, from whom all things are, and in whom we are, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and by whom we are.

³⁴I give you a new commandment: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also must you love one another. ³⁵By this, all shall recognize that you are my disciples: if you will have love for one another.”

⁶I wonder that you have been so quickly transferred, from him who called you into the grace of Christ, over to another gospel. ⁷For there is no other, except that there are some persons who disturb you and who want to overturn the Gospel of Christ. ⁸But if anyone, even we ourselves or an Angel from Heaven, were to preach to you a gospel other than the one that we have preached to you, let him be anathema. ⁹Just as we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone has preached a gospel to you, other than that which you have received, let him be anathema. ¹⁰For am I now persuading men, or God? Or, am I seeking to please men? If I still were pleasing men, then I would not be a servant of Christ.

⁶If your brother, the son of your mother, or your own son or daughter, or your wife who is in your bosom, or your friend, whom you love like your own soul, were willing to persuade you secretly, saying: ‘Let us go, and serve foreign gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, ⁷gods from any of the surrounding nations, whether these are near or far away, from the beginning even to the end of the earth, ⁸you should neither agree with him, nor listen to him. And your eye should not spare him so that you take pity on him and conceal him. ⁹Instead, you shall put him to death promptly. Let your hand be upon him first, and after that, let the hands of all the people be sent forth. ¹⁰He shall be killed by being overwhelmed with stones. For he was willing to draw you away from the Lord your God, who led you away from the land of Egypt, from the house of servitude.

²⁹When the Lord your God will have abolished before your face the nations, which you shall enter so as to possess them, and when you will possess them and live in their land, ³⁰be careful that you do not imitate them, after they have been overturned at your arrival, and that you do not seek their ceremonies, saying: ‘Just as these nations have worshipped their gods, so also will I worship.’ ³¹You shall not act in like manner toward the Lord your God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations that the Lord spurns, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire.

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that all who believe in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world, in order to judge the world, but in order that the world may be saved through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not judged. But whoever does not believe is already judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

²⁶But if anyone considers himself to be religious, but he does not restrain his tongue, but instead seduces his own heart: such a one’s religion is vanity.

¹And this shall be: In the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be prepared at the top of the mountains and high above the hills. And the people will flow to it. ²And many nations will hurry, and will say: “Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ³And he will judge among the many peoples, and he will correct strong nations, even from afar. And they will cut up their swords into plows, and their spears into hoes. Nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to wage war. ⁴And a man will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one to fear, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. ⁵For all people will walk, each one in the name of his god. But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God, forever and ever. ⁶In that day, says the Lord, I will gather together the lame. And I will recover her whom I had rejected, and her whom I had afflicted.

⁹him whose advent is accompanied by the works of Satan, with every kind of power and signs and false miracles, ¹⁰and with every seduction of iniquity, toward those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth, so that they may be saved. For this reason, God will send to them works of deception, so that they may believe in lies, ¹¹in order that all those who have not believed in the truth, but who have consented to iniquity, may be judged. ¹²Yet we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved of God, because God has chosen you as first-fruits for salvation, by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.

⁴⁷And if anyone has heard my words and not kept them, I do not judge him. For I did not come so that I may judge the world, but so that I may save the world.