General Maxims

³ For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires^(A)

⁷ The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil.^(A)

¹⁸ Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.^{(A) 19} And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.^{(B) 20} For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.^{(C) 21} But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”^[a](D)

⁷ The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one other by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me but only disaster.” Jehoshaphat said, “Let the king not say such a thing.”^(A)