3 John 1

₁My dear friend Gaius, I, the elder, write this letter to you. I love you because we both know the truth that comes from God. ₂Dear friend, I pray that everything will be well with you. I know that your spirit is well, and I pray that your body will be as strong as your faith is. ₃I was very happy when some of the believers from our congregation came to tell us that you know the truth and that you do what God tells us. ₄It makes me very happy when I hear that my children do what God says.

₅Dear friend, you are always faithful because you help all the believers who come to you, and also the believers that you do not know. ₆They came to this congregation and they told us about your love. I am sending them to you again. Please help them so that they can go on their mission as God wants. ₇They go to other people to tell them about Christ, but the people who do not believe give them nothing. ₈That is why we must help everyone who tells other people about Christ. If we do this, we are helping them to tell the truth to everyone.

₉I wrote a letter to the congregation in your town, but Diotrephes does not listen to us. He wants to be the most important in the congregation. ₁₀So when I come to you, I will tell the congregation what he did. He is saying false and bad things about us to other people and he also does other bad things. He does not let other believers come into your congregation and he kicks out members who let other believers come into the congregation. ₁₁Dear friend, there are people who do bad things. You must not do any of those bad things. Do only good things. Everyone who does good things is a child of God, but everyone who does bad things does not believe in God.

₁₂I am sending Demetrius to you. Everyone says he is a good person. The things he does show that he is good. We also say he is good and you know that we tell the truth.

₁₃There are many other things that I want to tell you, but I do not want to write them in a letter. ₁₄I hope to see you soon, and then we can be together and talk. ₁₅I pray that God will give you peace. All the friends here with me send greetings to you. Please give our love and greetings to each one of the friends there with you.