and we write this to you to make your happiness complete.

This is the message that we heard from him and announce to you: God is light; there is no darkness in him at all.

My dear children, I am writing you this so that you may not sin; yet if anyone does sin, we have in Jesus Christ one who is upright and will intercede for us with the Father.

This is how we can be sure that we know him??y obeying his commands.

but whoever obeys his message really has the love of God in perfection in his heart. This is the way we can be sure that we are in union with him;

I write you this with reference to those who are trying to mislead you.

Think what love the Father has had for us, in letting us be called God's children, for that is what we are. This is why the world does not know what we are??ecause it has never come to know him.

And everyone who possesses this hope in him tries to make himself as pure as he is.

Whoever commits sin is a child of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared??o undo the devil's work.

This is how the children of God and those of the devil can be distinguished: No one who does not act uprightly or who does not love his brother is a child of God.

For the message you have heard from the beginning is this: We must love one another.

His command is this??hat we are to believe in his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he has commanded us to do.

All who obey his commands keep in union with him, and he does with them; and this is how we know that he keeps in union with us??y the Spirit which he has given us.

You can tell the Spirit of God in this way: all inspiration that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God,

We are God's children. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not a child of God will not listen to us. In this way we can tell what is inspired by truth from what is inspired by error.

God's love for us has been revealed in this way??hat God has sent his only Son into the world, to let us have life through him.

This is the way we know that we keep in union with him and he does with us??ecause he has given us some of his Spirit.

Love attains perfection in us, when we have perfect confidence about the Day of Judgment, because here in this world we are living as he lives.

This is the command that we get from him, that whoever loves God must love his brother also.

This is how we can be sure that we love the children of God: it is by loving God and obeying his commands.

It was he, Jesus Christ himself, who came in water and in blood; not in water only, but in water and in blood. The Spirit also testifies to this, for the Spirit is truth.

If we accept the testimony of men, the testimony of God is stronger still; for the value of God's testimony lies in this, that he has testified to his Son.

And that testimony is that God has given us eternal life, and that this life is found in his Son.

I have written this so that you who believe in the Son of God may know that you have eternal life.