¹Consider this: The Father has given us his love. He loves us so much that we are actually called God’s dear children. And that’s what we are. For this reason the world doesn’t recognize us, and it didn’t recognize him either. ²Dear friends, now we are God’s children. What we will be isn’t completely clear yet. We do know that when Christ appears we will be like him because we will see him as he is. ³So all people who have this confidence in Christ keep themselves pure, as Christ is pure.

⁴Those who live sinful lives are disobeying God. Sin is disobedience. ⁵You know that Christ appeared in order to take away our sins. He isn’t sinful. ⁶Those who live in Christ don’t go on sinning. Those who go on sinning haven’t seen or known Christ.

⁷Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you. Whoever does what God approves of has God’s approval as Christ has God’s approval. ⁸The person who lives a sinful life belongs to the devil, because the devil has been committing sin since the beginning. The reason that the Son of God appeared was to destroy what the devil does. ⁹Those who have been born from God don’t live sinful lives. What God has said lives in them, and they can’t live sinful lives. They have been born from God. ¹⁰This is the way God’s children are distinguished from the devil’s children. Everyone who doesn’t do what is right or love other believers isn’t God’s child.

Love One Another

¹¹The message that you have heard from the beginning is to love each other. ¹²Don’t be like Cain. He was a child of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain murder his brother? Because the things Cain did were evil and the things his brother did had God’s approval. ¹³Brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised if the world hates you.

¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love other believers. The person who doesn’t grow in love remains in death. ¹⁵Everyone who hates another believer is a murderer, and you know that a murderer doesn’t have eternal life.

¹⁶We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers. ¹⁷Now, suppose a person has enough to live on and notices another believer in need. How can God’s love be in that person if he doesn’t bother to help the other believer? ¹⁸Dear children, we must show love through actions that are sincere, not through empty words.

¹⁹This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we will be reassured in his presence. ²⁰Whenever our conscience condemns us, we will be reassured that God is greater than our conscience and knows everything. ²¹Dear friends, if our conscience doesn’t condemn us, we can boldly look to God ²²and receive from him anything we ask. We receive it because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. ²³This is his commandment: to believe in his Son, the one named Jesus Christ, and to love each other as he commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey Christ’s commandments live in God, and God lives in them. We know that he lives in us because he has given us the Spirit.

4TH CHAPTER

Test People Who Say They Have God’s Spirit

¹Dear friends, don’t believe all people who say that they have the Spirit. Instead, test them. See whether the spirit they have is from God, because there are many false prophets in the world. ²This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit: Every person who declares that Jesus Christ has come as a human has the Spirit that is from God. ³But every person who doesn’t declare that Jesus Christ has come as a human has a spirit that isn’t from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that you have heard is coming. That spirit is already in the world.

⁴Dear children, you belong to God. So you have won the victory over these people, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵These people belong to the world. That’s why they speak the thoughts of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We belong to God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever doesn’t belong to God doesn’t listen to us. That’s how we can tell the Spirit of truth from the spirit of lies.

God’s Love Lives in His People

⁷Dear friends, we must love each other because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. ⁸The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love. ⁹God has shown us his love by sending his only Son into the world so that we could have life through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the payment for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love each other. ¹²No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. ¹³We know that we live in him and he lives in us because he has given us his Spirit.

¹⁴We have seen and testify to the fact that the Father sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God lives in those who declare that Jesus is the Son of God, and they live in God. ¹⁶We have known and believed that God loves us. God is love. Those who live in God’s love live in God, and God lives in them.

¹⁷God’s love has reached its goal in us. So we look ahead with confidence to the day of judgment. While we are in this world, we are exactly like him ⸤with regard to love⸥. ¹⁸No fear exists where his love is. Rather, perfect love gets rid of fear, because fear involves punishment. The person who lives in fear doesn’t have perfect love.

¹⁹We love because God loved us first. ²⁰Whoever says, “I love God,” but hates another believer is a liar. People who don’t love other believers, whom they have seen, can’t love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹Christ has given us this commandment: The person who loves God must also love other believers.

5TH CHAPTER

Those Who Believe in Jesus Are God’s Children

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born from God. Everyone who loves the Father also loves his children. ²We know that we love God’s children when we love God by obeying his commandments. ³To love God means that we obey his commandments. Obeying his commandments isn’t difficult ⁴because everyone who has been born from God has won the victory over the world. Our faith is what wins the victory over the world. ⁵Who wins the victory over the world? Isn’t it the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

⁶This Son of God is Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood. He didn’t come with water only, but with water and with blood. The Spirit is the one who verifies this, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷There are three witnesses:^a⁸the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These three witnesses agree.

⁹We accept human testimony. God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony that he has given about his Son. ¹⁰Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony of God in them. Those who don’t believe God have made God a liar. They haven’t believed the testimony that God has given about his Son.

¹¹This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is found in his Son. ¹²The person who has the Son has this life. The person who doesn’t have the Son of God doesn’t have this life.

Conclusion

¹³I’ve written this to those who believe in the Son of God so that they will know that they have eternal life.

¹⁴We are confident that God listens to us if we ask for anything that has his approval. ¹⁵We know that he listens to our requests. So we know that we already have what we ask him for.

¹⁶If you see another believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, you should pray that God would give that person life. This is true for those who commit sins that don’t lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I’m not telling you to pray about that. ¹⁷Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, yet there are sins that don’t lead to death.

¹⁸We know that those who have been born from God don’t go on sinning. Rather, the Son of God protects them, and the evil one can’t harm them.

¹⁹We know that we are from God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

²⁰We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we know the real God. We are in the one who is real, his Son Jesus Christ. This Jesus Christ is the real God and eternal life.

²¹Dear children, guard yourselves from false gods.

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Footnotes

a 5:7 Four very late manuscripts add verses 7b–8a: “in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. These three witnesses agree. And there are three witnesses on earth:”