4Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ^a has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

⁴You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵They are from the world; therefore^b they speak from the world and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

God’s Love Revealed

⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. ⁸The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God sent his one and only Son into the world in order that we may live through him. ¹⁰In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation^c for our sins.

¹¹Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us and his love is perfected in us. ¹³By this we know that we reside in him and he in us: that^d he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. ¹⁶And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. ¹⁷By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as that one is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear includes punishment, and the one who is afraid has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹We love, because he first loved us.

²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God whom he has not seen. ²¹And this is the commandment we have from him: that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

5Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been fathered by God, and everyone who loves the father^a also loves the child fathered by him. ²By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and keep his commandments. ³For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴because everyone who is fathered by God conquers the world.

God Has Given Us Eternal Life in the Son

And this is the victory which has conquered the world: our faith. ⁵Now who is the one who conquers the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? ⁶This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷For there are three that testify,^b ⁸the Spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement^c.

⁹If we receive the testimony of people, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son. ¹⁰(The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.) ¹¹And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Our Assurance of Eternal Life

¹³These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. ¹⁶If anyone should see his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he should ask, and he will grant life to him, to those who sin not leading to death. (There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should ask about that. ¹⁷All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.)

¹⁸We know that everyone who is fathered by God does not sin, but the one fathered by God, he protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. ¹⁹We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. ²⁰And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, in order that we may know the one who is true, and we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. ²¹Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

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Footnotes

aOr “confesses Jesus as Christ who has come in the flesh” (see also 2 John 7)
bLiterally “because of this”
cOr “expiation”; or “atoning sacrifice”
dOr “because”
aLiterally “the one who fathers”
bLater Latin manuscripts add the following words to v. 7 and v. 8: “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. 8 And there are three that testify on earth”
cLiterally “for the one”