1 BELOVED, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. And this is the [spirit] of anti-christ, of which you have heard that he is coming, and he is now in the world already.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world; therefore they speak of the world and the world hears them.
6 We are of God; he that knows God hears us, he that is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 He that loves not has not known God; for God is love.
9 The love of God was manifested to us in this; that God has sent his only Son into the world that we may live through him.
10 In this is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God continues in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we continue in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son, the Saviour of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God continues in him and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love which God has for us. God is love; and he that continues in love continues in God and God in him.