Let Us Sing Songs of Praise
1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us fmake a joyful noise to gthe rock of our salvation!
2 Let us hcome into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us fmake a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is ia great God,
and a great King jabove all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for khe made it,
and his hands formed kthe dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us lkneel before the Lord, our mMaker!
7 For he is our nGod,
and we are the people of his opasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
pToday, if you qhear his voice,
8 rdo not harden your hearts, as at sMeribah,
as on the day at tMassah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the utest
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my vwork.
10 wFor forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known xmy ways.”
11 Therefore I yswore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter zmy rest.”
Greeting
1 aThe elder to the beloved Gaius, bwhom I love in truth.
2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. 3 For cI rejoiced greatly when the brothers1 came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that dmy children are walking in the truth.
Support and Opposition
5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for ethese brothers, fstrangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner gworthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of hthe name, iaccepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
11 Beloved, jdo not imitate evil but imitate good. kWhoever does good is from God; lwhoever does evil has not seen God. 12 Demetrius mhas received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and nyou know that our testimony is true.
Final Greetings
13 oI had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.
15 Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, peach by name.
