Testing the Spirits

1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2By this ²⁸you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

3but every spirit that does not confess ²⁹that Jesus ³⁰Christ has come in the flesh is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now in the world already.

4You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

5They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.

6We are from God. Whoever 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 error.

God Is Love

7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9In this the love of God was revealed among us, that God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

12No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

13We know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit.

14And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

15If anyone confesses that ³¹Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

16And we have come to know and to trust in the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God ³²abides in him.

17In this way, love is perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.

18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

19We love ³³him because he first loved us.

20Whoever says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother is a liar. For ³⁴if anyone does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

21And this is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.