Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, Nymphodora; Poulcheria the Empress

seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me who is not weak, but is powerful in you. ⁴For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him through the power of God toward you.

⁵Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. ⁶But I hope that you will know that we aren’t disqualified.

⁷Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is honorable, though we may seem to have failed. ⁸For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. ⁹For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray for this: your becoming perfect. ¹⁰For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not deal sharply when present, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.

¹¹Finally, brothers, rejoice! Be perfected. Be comforted. Be of the same mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. ¹²Greet one another with a holy kiss.

¹³All the saints greet you.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God. ¹⁹This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. ²⁰For everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. ²¹But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”