“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning.

“The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem.

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part.

Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,

He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

The Incarnation of the Word of Life

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.

The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

More on Love and Hatred

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.