The Message to the Church in Smyrna

⁸ “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive:

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. ¹⁸ I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.^[a]

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,”^[a] says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”

¹¹ It said, “Write in a book^[a] everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

The Message to the Church in Ephesus

2 “Write this letter to the angel^[a] of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands: