2 John 1:3

1:3 Grace, mercy, and ¹  peace will be with us from God the Father and from ²  Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

2 John 1:13

1:13 The children of your elect sister greet you. ³ 

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¹ tn “And” is not in the Greek text. It is supplied for smoothness in English.

² tc Most witnesses, including some early and important ones (א P 33 Ï sy), have κυρίου (kuriou, “Lord”) before ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Ihsou Cristou, “Jesus Christ”), but this is a typical scribal addition, motivated by pietistic and liturgical concerns. Further, early and excellent mss (A B Ψ 048 0232 81 323 1739 al) lack κυρίου. Thus, both internally and externally, the shorter reading is strongly preferred.

³ tc The Byzantine text has ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”) at the conclusion of this letter. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the particle is lacking in excellent, early, and diffuse witnesses (א A B P Ψ 33 81 323 1739 1881 al co), rendering its omission the strongly preferred reading.