Book of Common Prayer
18 `Write this to the angel of the church people in Thyatira: Here are the words of the Son of God. He is the one whose eyes shine like a flame of fire, and his feet shine like fine brass.
19 `He says, "I know the things you do. I know that you love me, believe in me, work for me, and are patient. I know that you do these things more now than you did at first.
20 But I have this to say against you. You let that woman named Jezebel keep on teaching. She calls herself a prophet of God but teaches my servants wrong things. She fools them to use sex wrongly and eat food that has been given to idols.
21 I gave her time to stop, but she will not stop her wrong sexual ways and turn back to God.
22 Look, I will make her very sick, and also those who love her. I will do it if they do not stop what they are doing with her.
23 I will kill her children. Then all the churches will know that I find out what is in a person's mind and heart. I will pay each one of you for the good or wrong things you have done.
24 But some of you in Thyatira do not listen to that woman's teaching. You have not learned what some people call the deep things of Satan. To you I say, I will put no other load on you.
25 The only thing I say to you is to keep on believing until I come.
26 If a person wins and does what I want him to do until the end, I will make him rule with me over all peoples.
27 The holy writings said this long ago: `He will rule them with an iron stick. He will break them to pieces like pots made of clay.' This is the same power as I received from my Father.
28 And I will give him the morning star."
29 `He who can hear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.'
27 `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You are like graves that have been painted white. Outside they look very nice. But inside they are full of dead men's bones and all kinds of dirt.
28 So it is with you. You look right on the outside. But inside you are full of lies and wrong ways.
29 `You scribes and Pharisees will have trouble. You who are not true to yourselves! You build places to bury the prophets and fix up graves of good men.
30 You say, "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have helped to kill the prophets of God."
31 So you prove that you are the sons of the men who killed the prophets.
32 Finish doing what your fathers started to do.
33 You snakes - a whole family of snakes! You cannot get away! You will be judged and sent to hell.
34 That is why I send you prophets, wise men, and teachers. You will kill some of them and nail them to a cross. And you will beat some of them in your meeting houses and trouble them from one town to another.
35 So you will be punished for all the blood of every good man that is on the ground. I mean all the blood from the time of Abel, who was a good man, to Zechariah, the son of Barachiah. You killed him between the temple and God's altar.
36 I tell you the truth. The people who are still living now will be punished for all these things.
37 `Jerusalem! Jerusalem! You kill the prophets. You throw stones to kill the men who are sent to you! How often I have wanted to gather your people together, as a mother hen gathers her little ones under her wings. But you would not come!
38 Now you are left alone in your house.
39 I tell you this. You will not see me again until the time when you say, "God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord." '
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