Y’all look at the kind of love the Father has given to us—that we should be called children of God! And indeed we are! For this reason the world doesn’t know us: because it didn’t know ʜɪᴍ. Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. But we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him just as he is. All who have this hope set on him purify themselves, even as he is pure.
Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Indeed, sin is lawlessness. But y’all know that he was revealed to take away sins, and no sin is in him. Whoever remains in him doesn’t sin. Whoever sins hasn’t seen him and doesn’t know him.
Little children, don’t let anyone lead y’all astray. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is from the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this: that he might destroy the works of the devil. Anyone born of God doesn’t practice sin, because God’s seed remains in them. They can’t go on sinning, because they are born of God. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are revealed: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who doesn’t love their sibling.
Love One Another
For this is the message that y’all heard from the beginning, that we should love one another— unlike Cain, who was from the evil one and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
Y’all shouldn’t marvel, my siblings, if the world hates y’all. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the siblings. Anyone who doesn’t love remains in death. Whoever hates their sibling is a murderer, and y’all know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
This is how we know what love is: that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our siblings. If someone has worldly possessions and sees his sibling in need but closes his heart toward them, how does God’s love remain in that person?
My little children, let us not love in words or with the tongue, but in deed and in truth. This is how we know that we are of the truth and persuade our hearts before ʜɪᴍ: that if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from ʜɪᴍ, because we keep ʜɪꜱ commandments and do the things that are pleasing in ʜɪꜱ sight. This is ʜɪꜱ commandment, that we should believe in the name of ʜɪꜱ Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as ʜᴇ commanded. Anyone who keeps ʜɪꜱ commandments remains in ʜɪᴍ, and ʜᴇ in that person. By this we know that ʜᴇ remains in us, by the Spirit which ʜᴇ gave us.