Letters to the Churches

for the person who says, “Shalom!” to him shares in his evil deeds.

Although I have much to write you people, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come and see you and to talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

The children of your chosen sister send you their greetings.

From: The Elder To: Dear Gaius, whom I love in truth:

Dear friend, I am praying that everything prosper with you and that you be in good health, as I know you are prospering spiritually.

For I was so happy when some brothers came and testified how faithful you are to the truth, as you continue living in the truth.

Nothing gives me greater joy than hearing that my children are living in the truth.

Dear friend, you are faithful in all the work you are doing for the brothers, even when they are strangers to you.

They have testified to your love in front of the congregation. You will be doing well if you send them on their way in a manner worthy of God,

since it was for the sake of HaShem that they went out without accepting anything from the Goyim.

It is we, therefore, who should support such people; so that we may share in their work for the truth.

I wrote something to the congregation; but Diotrephes, who likes to be the macher among them, doesn’t recognize our authority.

So if I come, I will bring up everything he is doing, including his spiteful and groundless gossip about us. And as if that weren’t enough for him, he refuses to recognize the brothers’ authority either; moreover, he stops those who want to do so and tries to drive them out of the congregation!

Dear friend, don’t imitate the bad, but the good. Those who do what is good are from God; those who do what is bad are not from God.

Everyone speaks well of Demetrius, and so does the truth itself. We vouch for him, and you know that our testimony is true.

I have much to write you, but I don’t want to write with pen and ink;

however, I am hoping to see you very soon, and we will speak face to face. Shalom to you. Your friends send you their greetings. Greet each of our friends by name.

From: Y’hudah, a slave of Yeshua the Messiah and a brother of Ya‘akov To: Those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept for Yeshua the Messiah:

May mercy, love and shalom be yours in full measure.

Dear friends, I was busily at work writing to you about the salvation we share, when I found it necessary to write, urging you to keep contending earnestly for the faith which was once and for all passed on to God’s people.

For certain individuals, the ones written about long ago as being meant for this condemnation, have wormed their way in — ungodly people who pervert God’s grace into a license for debauchery and disown our only Master and Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.

Since you already know all this, my purpose is only to remind you that Adonai, who once delivered the people from Egypt, later destroyed those who did not trust.

And the angels that did not keep within their original authority, but abandoned their proper sphere, he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for the Judgment of the Great Day.

And S’dom, ‘Amora and the surrounding cities, following a pattern like theirs, committing sexual sins and perversions, lie exposed as a warning of the everlasting fire awaiting those who must undergo punishment.

Likewise, these people, with their visions, defile their own flesh, despise godly authority and insult angelic beings.