• 1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, if they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
  • 2. Hereby ye know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God;
  • 3. and every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God: and this is that [power] of the antichrist, [of] which ye have heard that it comes, and now it is already in the world.
  • 4. *Ye* are of God, children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that [is] in you than he that [is] in the world.
  • 5. *They* are of the world; for this reason they speak [as] of the world, and the world hears them.
  • 6. *We* are of God; he that knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
  • 7. Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God.
  • 8. He that loves not has not known God; for God is love.
  • 9. Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
  • 10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins.
  • 11. Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
  • 12. No one has seen God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
  • 13. Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, that he has given to us of his Spirit.
  • 14. And *we* have seen, and testify, that the Father has sent the Son [as] Saviour of the world.
  • 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
  • 16. And *we* have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
  • 17. Herein has love been perfected with us that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, that even as *he* is, *we* also are in this world.
  • 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has torment, and he that fears has not been made perfect in love.
  • 19. *We* love because *he* has first loved us.
  • 20. If any one say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
  • 21. And this commandment have we from him, That he that loves God love also his brother.