1 John 3:11–5:12

Love One Another

^11*The message you heard from the very beginning is this: we must love one another. ^12*We must not be like Cain; he belonged to the Evil One and murdered his own brother Abel. Why did Cain murder him? Because the things he himself did were wrong, but the things his brother did were right.

¹³So do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the people of the world hate you. ^14*We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love our brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love is still under the power of death. ¹⁵All who hate others are murderers, and you know that murderers have not got eternal life in them. ¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for our brothers and sisters! ¹⁷Rich people who see a brother or sister in need, yet close their hearts against them, cannot claim that they love God. ¹⁸My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.

Courage before God

¹⁹This, then, is how we will know that we belong to the truth; this is how we will be confident in God’s presence. ²⁰If our conscience condemns us, we know that God is greater than our conscience and that he knows everything. ²¹And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God’s presence. ²²We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. ^23*What he commands is that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as Christ commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey God’s commands live in union with God and God lives in union with them. And because of the Spirit that God has given us we know that God lives in union with us.

The True Spirit and the False

4My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere. ²This is how you will be able to know whether it is God’s Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God. ³But anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the Spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the Enemy of Christ; you heard that it would come, and now it is here in the world already.

⁴But you belong to God, my children, and have defeated the false prophets, because the Spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world. ⁵Those false prophets speak about matters of the world, and the world listens to them because they belong to the world. ⁶But we belong to God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever does not belong to God does not listen to us. This, then, is how we can tell the difference between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

God Is Love

⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. ¹⁰This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.

¹¹Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. ^12*No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us.

¹³We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. ¹⁵If anyone declares that Jesus is the Son of God, he lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. ¹⁶And we ourselves know and believe the love which God has for us.

God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. ¹⁷Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on Judgement Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ’s. ¹⁸There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.

¹⁹We love because God first loved us. ²⁰If we say we love God, but hate our brothers and sisters, we are liars. For people cannot love God, whom they have not seen, if they do not love their brothers and sisters, whom they have seen. ²¹The command that Christ has given us is this: all who love God must love their brother or sister also.

Our Victory over the World

5Whoever believes that Jesus is the Messiah is a child of God; and whoever loves a father loves his child also. ²This is how we know that we love God’s children: it is by loving God and obeying his commands. ^3*For our love for God means that we obey his commands. And his commands are not too hard for us, ⁴because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our faith. ⁵Who can defeat the world? Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Witness about Jesus Christ

⁶Jesus Christ is the one who came with the water of his baptism and the blood of his death. He came not only with the water, but with both the water and the blood. And the Spirit himself testifies that this is true, because the Spirit is truth. ⁷There are three witnesses: ⁸the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and all three give the same testimony. ⁹We believe human testimony; but God’s testimony is much stronger, and he has given this testimony about his Son. ¹⁰So all who believe in the Son of God have this testimony in their own hearts; but those who do not believe God have made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed what God has said about his Son. ^11*The testimony is this: God has given us eternal life, and this life has its source in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.