4 Dear friends, don’t trust every spirit, but test them to determine whether or not it’s from God, because many false prophets go around the world. 2 You all can find out whether or not a spirit is from God: If the spirit confesses that Yeshua the messiah has come as a person, then it’s from God 3 but if the spirit won’t confess Yeshua, then it’s not from God but rather it’s the spirit of the false messiah, whom you’ve heard is coming, and is now already in the world.

4 You new believers are in God and you have defeated the false prophets, because the one in you is more powerful than the one in the world. 5 They belong to the world hence they are speaking from the world, and the world is listening to them. 6 However we belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, but anyone who doesn’t belong to God can’t accept what we’re saying. That’s how we can distinguish the spirit of truth from deceptive spirits.