The Geneva Bible (1599)

The third letter of John, to Gaius. This page gives the book complete in the Geneva Bible of 1599, the Bible most read in Shakespeare's England, in its original spelling ("vnto", "heauen", "Iesus"). It is the text alone: the marginal notes for which the Geneva Bible was famous are not part of this transcription.

Chapter 1

1 The Elder vnto the beloued Gaius, whom I loue in the trueth.

2 Beloued, I wish chiefly that thou prosperedst and faredst well as thy soule prospereth.

3 For I reioyced greatly when the brethren came, and testified of the trueth that is in thee, how thou walkest in the trueth.

4 I haue no greater ioy then these, that is, to heare that my sonnes walke in veritie.

5 Beloued, thou doest faithfully, whatsoeuer thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers,

6 Which bare witnesse of thy loue before the Churches. Whom if thou bringest on their iourney as it beseemeth according to God, thou shalt doe well,

7 Because that for his Names sake they went forth, and tooke nothing of the Gentiles.

8 We therefore ought to receiue such, that we might be helpers to the trueth.

9 I wrote vnto the Church: but Diotrephes which loueth to haue the preeminence among them, receiueth vs not.

10 Wherefore if I come, I will call to your remembrance his deedes which he doeth, pratling against vs with malicious wordes, and not therewith content, neither he himselfe receiueth the brethren, but forbiddeth them that woulde, and thrusteth them out of the Church.

11 Beloued, follow not that which is euill, but that which is good: he that doeth well, is of God: but he that doeth euill, hath not seene God.

12 Demetrius hath good report of al men, and of the trueth it selfe: yea, and wee our selues beare recorde, and ye know that our record is true.

13 I haue many things to write: but I will not with yncke and pen write vnto thee:

14 For I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speake mouth to mouth. Peace be with thee. The friends salute thee. Greete the friends by name.

Colophon

This page gives 3 John complete, every chapter and verse, as it stands in the electronic text of the Geneva Bible of 1599 distributed by eBible.org (USFM edition enggnv, source files dated 12 December 2025, downloaded 2 October 2026). eBible.org does not name the transcriber or the printed copy transcribed; CrossWire's module of the same text (Geneva1599) describes it as the "1599 Geneva Bible Electronic edition edited by Mark Langley." Geneva Bibles dated 1599 were issued in London by the deputies of Christopher Barker, and the same date was later carried by reprints made abroad; the electronic edition does not say which printing it follows. The spelling is the original spelling; nothing has been modernised or corrected here, including places where the electronic text is not uniform (for example "Iesus" beside an occasional "Jesus"). Verse numbers and chapter divisions are those of the electronic text, which follows the Geneva numbering where it differs from later Bibles. Only the electronic markup has been removed; the book heading is the electronic edition's heading, not a facsimile of the 1599 title.

The famous Geneva marginal notes are not in this text. Nor are the arguments and chapter summaries of the printed Bible, its prefatory matter, or the Apocrypha.

Licence: public domain. The eBible.org copyright page in the source package reads: "Public Domain … This digital copy is freely available world-wide, with no copyright restrictions, courtesy of eBible.org and many others. Note that the spelling used is the original spelling, which is not modern English."

This is an archival transcription of a historic English Bible. It is not a Good Works Translation.

🌲