By me Hendrick Verstralen, in bonds for the testimony of the truth, on Palm Sunday, A. D. 1571.
We prisoners and bound in the Lord for the eternal truth’s sake, Hendrick Verstralen and Maeyken Deynoots, your very weak brother and sister in the Lord, wish our very dear and affectionately beloved brethren and sisters, who in the Lord stand in like faith with us, and are gone out from Babylon, no more to touch the unclean thing, nor to be yoked together any more with unbelievers, but are come unto Jerusalem, into the church of the living God, there to serve the Lord your God, around the slaughter house, where some of you are still spared, as the prophet Jeremiah says (Jer. 11:19), to be baptized; much consolation, gladness and joy in all your hearts, from God our heavenly Father, and this through Jesus Christ his only, eternally begotten Son, full of grace and truth, through this our High Priest and mercy seat, who offered himself to God his Father for us, on the tree of the cross, that through his death he might prepare us the entrance to eternal life. Through this innocent and spotless Lamb, that took away our sins, we bow the knee of our heart day and night before God our heavenly Father, that he would spread his peace among you as a river, and confirm you, my dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, with his Holy Spirit, that you may be strengthened in the inner man, and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and love (Eph. 4:3), so that we, my dear brethren and sisters, who are bought and redeemed with the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, may together serve the Lord in holiness and righteousness acceptably before him, as long as we are in this tabernacle. Amen.
O thou camp of the Lord, thou city of the living God, may the Lord set watchmen everywhere on thy walls, that never hold their peace day nor night (Is. 62:6); but that thy teachers may, as David says, be filled with much blessing, and gain one victory after another, so that the vineyard of the Lord may be planted, and thou Jerusalem be built, thou temple of the Lord, though in a sorrowful time. Let every one gird his sword to his side, and let him build with the one hand, and with the other let him hold the spear, so that the enemies who would prevent our working may be repelled, so that Zion alone may be shown prepared. O my dear brethren and sisters, we wish you from God, that you may be built together a spiritual house and habitation of God; that God’s law may be written in all your hearts, and his commandment be in your mind, and you thus remain sons and daughters of God in whom he may dwell and walk: that he would keep you, that you will never touch the unclean thing, but may approve yourselves in all things as ministers of God, so that the name of the Lord may be praised from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. O brethren and sisters, that your light may arise as the morning star, and you remain a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a peculiar people, so that you, dear brethren and sisters, may everywhere lift up holy hands to God, and offer up to him the fruit of your lips, spiritual sacrifices, so that the vial of the Lord may be filled with incense from the prayers of the saints. 1 Tim. 2:8; Heb. 13:15; Rev. 5:8. O thou bride of the Lamb, who from love of your bridegroom Christ must be zealous unto death, and bring forth the fruits of righteousness with many sorrows and pains, and be sick of love to him; may the Lord our God lay his left hand under your head, and embrace you with his right hand (Cant. 2:6), thou Eve regenerated by Christ your husband through the incorruptible seed of the living word of God proceeding from the fatherly heart. O thou beautiful daughter of the almighty Father, who art now presented to his Son Jesus, the Lord from heaven, and through faith in him shalt have eternal life; may the eternal, almighty Father richly pour out upon you his blessing and the power of the Holy Ghost, and make you fruitful and fit for every good work, so that you may win his Son Jesus many sons and daughters, that his wine press may soon be filled through the number of his saints (Rev. 6:11), and you may thus the sooner see the destruction of our enemies, who are innumerably many, and have bent our back, and walk over us as over a street, and reward us evil for good, because they cannot build with us on the spiritual house of the Lord, because they are uncircumcised of heart and carnally minded. Against these our enemies, may God arm us and you, my dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, with the armor of righteousness, [and grant] that we may be shod with the Gospel of peace, and our loins be girt about with truth, always having the two edged sword of the Spirit at our side, thus preserving our helmet of salvation with the shield of faith, guarding the knapsack of love, and thus following the Captain of our faith, as Christian soldiers, boldly waging the war of the Lord, under the bloody banner of Christ; so that we, our dear brethren and sisters, may through the grace of God gain the victory of a good fight in godly conflict, and obtain the crown of eternal life. Amen.