“We are children of God”

1Consider how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God! ³²The world does not acknowledge us ³³for this reason: it did not acknowledge Him. ³⁴

2Dear ones, right now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is ³⁵

3—everyone who has this hope upon him purifies himself, even as He is pure. ³⁶

“Whoever abides in Him does not sin”

4Everyone who commits sin commits lawlessness as well; yes, sin is lawlessness. ³⁷

5And you know that He was revealed in order to remove our sins—in Him there is no sin. ³⁸

6Whoever is abiding in Him does not sin; ³⁹indeed, whoever is sinning has neither seen Him nor known Him. ⁴⁰

7Dear children, let no one mislead you; he who keeps doing righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

8He who keeps doing sin is of the devil, ⁴¹because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose: to undo ⁴²the devil's works.

9Whoever has been begotten by God does not commit sin, because His seed remains in him; actually, he is not able to sin, because he has been begotten by God. ⁴³

Children of God X children of the devil

10In this the children of God and the children of the devil are distinguished: whoever is not doing righteousness is not of God, also whoever is not loving his brother.

11Because this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another

12—not like Cain, who was of the evil one ⁴⁴and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own works were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.

13My brothers, do not be surprised if the world hates you.

14We know that we have transferred out of the death into the life ⁴⁵because we love our brothers; he who does not love his brother ⁴⁶remains in the death.

15Whoever is hating his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding within himself. ⁴⁷

Love in deed and truth

16We know the Love by this: He laid down His life in our behalf; we also are obligated to lay down our lives in behalf of our brothers.

17Now whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart toward him—how does the love of God abide in him?

18My dear children, let us not love in word or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth

19—yes, by this we know that we are of the Truth and may put our hearts at ease in His presence,

20and that, if our heart should condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all. ⁴⁸

Confidence toward God

21Dear ones, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God,

22and whatever we may ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. ⁴⁹

23Now this is His commandment, that we believe in the name ⁵⁰of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded.

24He who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. ⁵¹This is how we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit whom He gave us.