1See 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.

2Beloved, 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.

3Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

4Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.

5You know that He appeared to take away sins. There is no sin in Him.

6No one who lives in Him sins. No one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

7Little children, don’t let anybody deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

8The one who practices sin is the Devil’s, because the Devil ³has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the Devil.

9No 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.

10By 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.

11For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should sincerely love one another.

12Don’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.

13Don’t be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

14We 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.

15Whoever hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life living in him.

16By 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.

17If 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?

18My little children, let’s not sincerely love just in words or in language, but in deed and in truth.

19This is how we will know that we belong to the truth, and how we will assure our hearts before Him

20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.

21Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God;

22and we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do the things that please Him.

23This 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.

24Whoever 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.