Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God; anyone who does what is evil has not seen God — the elder contrasts Diotrephes' example with the standard of imitation: followers of Christ should model goodness, not malice, and this behavioral alignment discloses one's relationship to God. The epistemological claim 'has not seen God' (heōraken ton theon) echoes Johannine theology, in which genuine knowledge of God transforms character, so that the absence of goodness indicates the absence of true knowledge. By anchoring ethics in Christology and soteriology, the elder makes clear that how one treats others—with hospitality or hostility—reflects and reveals the state of one's communion with the divine.

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