But whoever continually keeps his commandments is the kind of person in whom God's love has truly been perfected. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

They left us, but they were not part of us, for if they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. Their leaving made it clear that none of them was really part of us.

Since you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by God.

Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we will be like has not been revealed yet. We know that when the Messiah is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.

The person who practices sin belongs to the evil one, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason that the Son of God was revealed was to destroy what the Devil has been doing.

No one who has been born from God practices sin, because God's seed abides in him. Indeed, he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born from God.

Dear friends, let us continuously love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.

This is how love has been perfected among us: we will have confidence on the day of judgment because, during our time in this world, we are just like him.

There is no fear where love exists. Rather, perfect love banishes fear, for fear involves punishment, and the person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born from God, and everyone who loves the parent also loves the child.

We know that the person who has been born from God does not go on sinning. Rather, the Son of God protects them, and the evil one cannot harm them.