John Chapters

1 | •  ¹This is what has been from the beginning, and what we have heard and have seen with our own eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, I mean the Word who is Life…

²The Life made itself known. We have seen Eternal Life, and we bear witness to it, and we are telling you of it. It was with the Father and made himself known to us. ³So, we tell you what we have seen and heard that you may be in fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ.

⁴And we write this that our joy may be complete.

Walk in the light

•  ⁵We heard his message from him and announce it to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him.

⁶If we say we are in fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie instead of being in the truth. ⁷But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we are in fellowship with one another; and the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, purifies us from all sin.

⁸If we say, “We have no sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.

¹⁰If we say we do not sin, we make God a liar; his word is not in us.

Fulfill the Commandment of Love

2 | •  ¹My little children, I write that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an intercessor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Just One. ²He is the sacrificial victim for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

³How can we know that we know him? If we fulfill his commands.

⁴If you say, “I know him,” but do not fulfill his commands, you are a liar, and the truth is not in you. ⁵But if you keep his word, God’s love is made complete in you. This is how we know that we are in him:

⁶he who claims to live in him must live as he lived.

⁷My dear friends, I am not writing you a new commandment but reminding you of an old one, one you had from the beginning. This old commandment is the word you have heard.

⁸But, in a way, I give it as a new commandment that is true in him and you because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shines.

⁹If you claim to be in the light but hate your brother, you are still in darkness.

¹⁰If you love your brothers and sisters, you remain in the light, and nothing in you will make you fall. ¹¹ But if you hate your brother, you are in the dark and walk in darkness without knowing where you go, for the darkness has blinded you.

¹²My dear children, I write this to you because you have already received the forgiveness of your sins through the name of Jesus. ¹³Fathers, I write this to you because you know him who is from the beginning. Young men, I write this to you because you have overcome the evil one.

¹⁴My dear children, I write to you because you already know the Father. Fathers, I write to you, because you know him who is from the beginning. Young men, I write to you because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you who have, indeed, overcome the evil one.

•  ¹⁵Do not love the world or what is in it. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For everything in the world—

the craving of the flesh,

the greed of eyes

and people boasting of their superiority—

all this belongs to the world, not to the Father.

¹⁷The world passes away with all its cravings, but those who do the will of God remain forever.

Reject the Antichrist

•  ¹⁸My dear children, it is the last hour. You were told that an antichrist would come, but several antichrists have already come, by which we know that it is now the last hour.

¹⁹They left us, though they did not really belong to us. Had they belonged to us, they would have remained with us. So it became clear that not all of us were really ours.

²⁰But you have the anointing from the Holy One so that all of you have true wisdom.

²¹I write to you not because you lack knowledge of the truth but because you already know it, and lies have nothing in common with the truth. ²²Who is the liar?

The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ.

This is an antichrist who denies both the Father and the Son. ²³The one who denies the Son is without the Father, and those who acknowledge the Son also have the Father.

²⁴Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you too will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵And this is the promise he gave us: eternal life.

²⁶I write this to you thinking of those who try to lead you astray.

²⁷You received from him an anointing, and it remains in you, so you do not need someone to teach you. His anointing teaches you all things. It speaks the truth and does not lie to you, so remain in him and keep what he has taught you.

²⁸And now, my children, live in him, so that when he appears in his glory, we may be confident and not ashamed before him when he comes.

²⁹You know that he is the Just One: know, then, that anyone living justly is born of God.

3 | •  ¹See what singular love the Father has for us: we are called children of God, and we really are. This is why the world does not know us because it did not know him.

²Beloved, we are God’s children, and what we shall be has not yet been shown. Yet, when he appears in his glory, we know that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³All who have such hope try to be pure as he is pure.

⁴Anyone who commits sins acts as an enemy of the law of God; any sin acts wickedly because all sin is wickedness. ⁵You know that he came to take away our sins and that there is no sin in him. ⁶Whoever remains in him has no sin, whoever sins has not seen or known him.

•  ⁷My little children, do not be led astray; those who do what is right are upright, just as Jesus Christ is upright. ⁸But those who sin belong to the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning.

This is why the Son of God was shown to us to destroy the works of the devil.

⁹Those born of God do not sin, for the seed of God remains in them; they cannot sin because they are born of God.

¹⁰How can we recognize the children of God and those of the devil? The one who does not do what is right is not of God, and so, too, is the one who does not love his brother or sister.

¹¹For this is the message taught to you from the beginning: we must love one another. ¹²Do not imitate Cain, who killed his brother, for he belonged to the Evil One. Why did he kill him? Because he, himself, did evil, and his brother did good.

¹³So, be not surprised, brothers, if the world hates us; ¹⁴we love our brothers and sisters, and with this, we know that we have passed from death to life. The one who does not love remains in death.

¹⁵The one who hates his brother is a murderer, and, as you know, eternal life does not remain in the murderer.

¹⁶This is how we have known what love is: he gave his life for us. We, too, ought to give our life for our brothers and sisters.

¹⁷If anyone enjoys the riches of this world but closes his heart when he sees his brother or sister in need, how will the love of God remain in him? ¹⁸My dear children, let us love, not only with words and with our lips but in truth and deed.

¹⁹Then, we shall know that we are of the truth and may calm our conscience in his presence. ²⁰Every time it reproaches us, let us say: God is greater than our conscience, and he knows everything.

²¹When our conscience does not condemn us, dear friends, we may have complete confidence in God. ²²Then, whatever we ask, we shall receive since we keep his commands and do what pleases him.

²³His command is that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.

²⁴Whoever keeps his commands remains in God and God in him. It is by the Spirit God has given us that we know he lives in us.

Do Not Trust Every Inspiration

4 | •  ¹My beloved, do not trust every inspiration. Test the spirits to see whether they come from God because many false prophets are now in the world.

²How will you recognize the Spirit of God? Any spirit recognizing Jesus as the Christ who has taken our flesh is of God. ³But any spirit that does not recognize Jesus is not from God; it is the spirit of the antichrist. You have heard of his coming; even now, he is already in the world.

⁴You, my dear children, are of God, and you have already overcome these people because the one who is in you is more powerful than he who is in the world.

⁵They are of the world, and the world inspires them, and those of the world listen to them.

⁶We are of God, and those who know God listen to us, but those who are not of God ignore us. This is how we also know the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

God-Love Is the Source of Love

•  ⁷My dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

⁸Those who do not love have not known God, for God is love.

⁹How did God's love appear among us? God sent his only Son into this world so we might have life through him.

¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he first loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

¹¹Dear friends, if this is God's love, we, too, must love one another.

¹²No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love comes to its perfection in us.

¹³How may we know that we live in God and he in us? Because God has given us his Spirit.

¹⁴We ourselves have seen and declare that the Father sent his Son to save the world. ¹⁵Those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in them, and they in God.

¹⁶We have known God's love and have believed in it. God is love. The one who lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

¹⁷When do we know that we have reached a perfect love? When, in this world, we are like him in everything and expect, with confidence, the Day of Judgment.

¹⁸There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives away fear, for fear has to do with punishment; those who fear do not know perfect love.

¹⁹So, let us love one another since he loved us first.

²⁰If you say, “I love God,” while you hate your brother or sister, you are a liar. How can you love God, whom you do not see if you do not love your brother whom you see? ²¹We received from him this commandment: let those who love God also love their brothers.

Faith Comes from God

5 | •  ¹All those who believe that Jesus is the Anointed are born of God; whoever loves the Father loves the Son. ²How may we know that we love the children of God? If we love God and fulfill his commands,

³for God’s love requires us to keep his commands. In fact, his commandments are not a burden

⁴because all those born of God overcome the world. And the victory, which overcomes the world, is our faith. ⁵Who has overcome the world? The one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

⁶Jesus Christ was acknowledged through water, but also through blood.

Not only water but water and blood.

And the Spirit, too, witnesses to him, for the Spirit is truth.

⁷There are, then, three testimonies:

⁸the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three witnesses agree.

⁹If we accept human testimony, with greater reason we must accept that of God given in favor of his Son. ¹⁰If you believe in God's Son, you have God’s testimony in you.

But those who do not believe make God a liar since they do not believe the testimony God has given about his Son.

¹¹What has God said? He has granted us eternal life, which is in his Son. ¹²The one who has the Son has life; those who do not have the Son of God do not have life.

Keep Yourselves from Idols

•  ¹³I write you all these things so that you may know that you have eternal life, all you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

¹⁴Through him, we are fully confident that he will grant us whatever we ask according to his will. ¹⁵If we know that he hears us whenever we ask, we know we already have what we ask of him.

¹⁶If you see your brother committing sin, a sin which does not lead to death, pray for him, and God will give life to your brother. I speak, of course, of the sin which does not lead to death. There is also a sin that leads to death; I do not speak of praying about this. ¹⁷Every kind of wrong­doing is sin, but not all sin leads to death.

¹⁸We know that those born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.

•  ¹⁹We know that we belong to God, while the whole world lies in evil.

²⁰We know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the true one. We are in him who is true, his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

²¹My dear children, keep yourselves from idols.