and you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.

But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.

and have put on the new self. This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself.

So put on God's armor now! Then when the evil day comes, you will be able to resist the enemy's attacks; and after fighting to the end, you will still hold your ground.

The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

by our message of truth, and by the power of God. We have righteousness as our weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves.

The weapons we use in our fight are not the world's weapons but God's powerful weapons, which we use to destroy strongholds. We destroy false arguments;

But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.

So put on God's armor now! Then when the evil day comes, you will be able to resist the enemy's attacks; and after fighting to the end, you will still hold your ground.

If you don't, you will not be able to finish the tower after laying the foundation; and all who see what happened will make fun of you.

If a king goes out with ten thousand men to fight another king who comes against him with twenty thousand men, he will sit down first and decide if he is strong enough to face that other king.

Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people. But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.

And so he is able, now and always, to save those who come to God through him, because he lives forever to plead with God for them.

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to bring you faultless and joyful before his glorious presence---

Then we shall no longer be children, carried by the waves and blown about by every shifting wind of the teaching of deceitful people, who lead others into error by the tricks they invent.

For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear. They will perform miracles and wonders in order to deceive even God's chosen people, if possible.

in order to keep Satan from getting the upper hand over us; for we know what his plans are.

They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ---in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies.

Those men are not true apostles---they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ.

So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.

The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders,

And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false.

Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

False prophets appeared in the past among the people, and in the same way false teachers will appear among you. They will bring in destructive, untrue doctrines, and will deny the Master who redeemed them, and so they will bring upon themselves sudden destruction.

In their greed these false teachers will make a profit out of telling you made-up stories. For a long time now their Judge has been ready, and their Destroyer has been wide awake!

"But the rest of you in Thyatira have not followed this evil teaching; you have not learned what the others call 'the deep secrets of Satan.' I say to you that I will not put any other burden on you.

The huge dragon was thrown out---that ancient serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.

Then I saw another beast, which came up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb's horns, and it spoke like a dragon.

This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to earth in the sight of everyone.

The second beast was allowed to breathe life into the image of the first beast, so that the image could talk and put to death all those who would not worship it.

The beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had performed miracles in his presence. (It was by those miracles that he had deceived those who had the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped the image of the beast.) The beast and the false prophet were both thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent---that is, the Devil, or Satan---and chained him up for a thousand years.

The angel threw him into the abyss, locked it, and sealed it, so that he could not deceive the nations any more until the thousand years were over. After that he must be set loose for a little while.

After the thousand years are over, Satan will be set loose from his prison,

and he will go out to deceive the nations scattered over the whole world, that is, Gog and Magog. Satan will bring them all together for battle, as many as the grains of sand on the seashore.