I am writing to you, fathers, because you have knowledge of him who was from the first. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the Evil One. I have sent a letter to you, children, because you have knowledge of the Father.

I have sent a letter to you, fathers, because you have knowledge of him who was from the first. I have sent a letter to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God is in you, and because you have overcome the Evil One.

That which was from the first, which has come to our ears, and which we have seen with our eyes, looking on it and touching it with our hands, about the Word of life

Saying, Where is the hope of his coming? From the death of the fathers till now everything has gone on as it was from the making of the world.

And he said in answer, Have you not seen in the Writings, that he who made them at the first made them male and female, and said,

But from the first, male and female made he them.

For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing:

For those of us who have belief come into his rest; even as he has said, As I said in my oath when I was angry, They may not come into my rest: though the works were done from the time of the making of the world.

For then he would have undergone a number of deaths from the time of the making of the world: but now he has come to us at the end of the old order, to put away sin by the offering of himself.

Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? has not news of it been given to you from the first? has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was placed on its base?

Who has given knowledge of it from the first, so that we may be certain of it? and from the start, so that we may say, His word is true? There is no one who gives news, or says anything, or who gives ear to your words.

Because this is the word which was given to you from the first, that we are to have love for one another;

That it might come true which was said by the prophet, Opening my mouth, I will give out stories; I will give knowledge of things kept secret from before all time.

Then will the King say to those on his right, Come, you who have the blessing of my Father, into the kingdom made ready for you before the world was:

But it is right for us to give praise to God at all times for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because it was the purpose of God from the first that you might have salvation, being made holy by the Spirit and by faith in what is true:

The beast which you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the great deep, and to go into destruction. And those who are on the earth, whose names have not been put in the book of life from the first, will be full of wonder when they see the beast, that he was, and is not, and still will be.

So that punishment may come on this generation for the blood of all the prophets which was given from the earliest days;

He says to them, Moses, because of your hard hearts, let you put away your wives: but it has not been so from the first.

The sinner is a child of the Evil One; for the Evil One has been a sinner from the first. And the Son of God was seen on earth so that he might put an end to the works of the Evil One.

You are the children of your father the Evil One and it is your pleasure to do his desires. From the first he was a taker of life; and he did not go in the true way because there is no true thing in him. When he says what is false, it is natural to him, for he is false and the father of what is false.

Because in those days there will be great sorrow, such as there has not been from the start of the world till now, or ever will be.

For in those days there will be sorrow, such as there has not been from the time when God made the world till now, and will not ever be again.

As they were handed down to us by those who saw them from the first and were preachers of the word,

It seemed good to me, having made observation, with great care, of the direction of events in their order, to put the facts in writing for you, most noble Theophilus;

In all the years nobody has ever before seen the eyes of a man blind from birth made open.