1  See how great a sincere love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God! Because the world didn’t know Him, it doesn’t know us. 2  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when He appears we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3  Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 4  Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. 5  You know that He appeared to take away sins. There is no sin in Him. 6  No one who lives in Him sins. No one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7  Little children, don’t let anybody deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8  The one who practices sin is the Devil’s, because the Devil* has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the Devil. 9  No one who is born of God practices sin, because God’s seed lives in him. He can’t continue to sin, because he is born of God. 10  By this the children of God and the children of the Devil are obvious: anyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not God’s, and neither is anyone who doesn’t sincerely love his brother or sister.

11  For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should sincerely love one another. 12  Don’t be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because Cain’s deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.

13  Don’t be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14  We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we sincerely love our brothers and sisters. Whoever doesn’t sincerely love lives in death. 15  Whoever hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life living in him.

16  By this we know God’s sincere love, because He laid down His life for us. So we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17  If someone has this world’s goods, and sees a brother in need, and closes up his heart of compassion from him, how does God’s sincere love live in him? 18  My little children, let’s not sincerely love just in words or in language, but in deed and in truth. 19  This is how we will know that we belong to the truth, and how we will assure our hearts before Him 20  whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.

21  Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22  and we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do the things that please Him. 23  This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and that we sincerely love one another, just as He commanded us. 24  Whoever keeps His commandments lives in Him, and He lives in that person. This is how we know that He lives in us: by the Spirit He has given us.