²Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. ³For ^cI rejoiced greatly when the brothers¹ came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. ⁴I have no greater joy than to hear that ^dmy children are walking in the truth.

Support and Opposition

⁵Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for ^ethese brothers, ^fstrangers as they are, ⁶who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner ^gworthy of God. ⁷For they have gone out for the sake of ^hthe name, ⁱaccepting nothing from the Gentiles. ⁸Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

⁹I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. ¹⁰So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

¹¹Beloved, ^jdo not imitate evil but imitate good. ^kWhoever does good is from God; ^lwhoever does evil has not seen God.

Read in Logos

3 John 4: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Footnotes

1Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters; also verses 5, 10

Cross references

a 2 John 1
b 1 John 3:18; 2 John 1
c 2 John 4
d[1 Cor. 4:14, 15; Gal. 4:19; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philem. 10]
e[Gal. 6:10; Heb. 13:1]
fSee Matt. 25:35
g 1 Thess. 2:12; [Col. 1:10]
hSee Acts 5:41
i 1 Cor. 9:12, 15
j[Ps. 34:14; 37:27; Isa. 1:16, 17]
k 1 John 2:29
lSee 1 John 3:6