CHAPTER 1

1:1 I have known that you have a disposition blameless and unmovable in patience, not merely for outward use, but in your very nature. Even as Polybius, your bishop, hath showed unto me, who came unto me in Smyrna, according to the will of God and of Jesus Christ, and so rejoiced with me in my bonds in Jesus Christ, that I beheld your whole multitude in him.

1:2 Having received, therefore, through him your benevolence, which is according to God, I seemed to have found you, as I knew already, to be imitators of God.