and that life has been unveiled to us, and we have seen it and now testify to it and we now announce it to you, yea, the eternal life that was with the Father and has been unveiled to us.

I repeat, it is what we have seen and heard that we now announce to you, so that you too may share this fellowship with us, for this fellowship that we have is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ;

and now we write these things to you to make our joy complete.

And this is the message that we have heard from Him and now announce to you: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him.

By this we can be sure that we know Him -- if we practice obedience to His commands.

Whoever says, "I know Him," but does not practice obedience to His commands is a liar, and there is no truth in his heart;

Dearly beloved, I am not writing you a new command, but an old one that you have had from the beginning. That old command is the message that you have heard.

Yet it is a new command that I am writing you; it is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Whoever continues to love his brother is always in the light, and he is no hindrance to others.

But whoever continues to hate his brother is in darkness and is living in darkness, and he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one. I write to you, little children, because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and God's message is always in your hearts, and you have conquered the evil one.

Stop loving the world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, there is no love for the Father in his heart,

But you have been anointed by the Holy One. You all know the truth;

I do not write to you because you do not know it, but because you do know it.

No one who disowns the Son can have the Father. Whoever owns the Son has the Father too.

The anointing of the Spirit which you received still remains in your hearts, and so you have no need that anyone should teach you. But just as that anointing of His teaches you about everything, and as it is true and no falsehood, and as it has taught you to do so, you must continue to live in union with Him.

And now, dear children, I repeat, you must continue to live in union with Him, so that if He is unveiled, we may have unshaken confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame when He comes.

If you know that He is upright, you must know that everyone who practices uprightness is born of Him.

See what wonderful love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called God's children, and that is what we are! This is why the world does not know what we are, because it has never come to know Him.

Dearly beloved, we are now God's children, but what we are going to be has not been unveiled. We know that if it is unveiled, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

You know that He appeared to take our sins away, and that there is no sin in Him.

No one who continues to live in union with Him practices sin. No one who practices sin has ever seen Him or come to know Him.

No one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, because the God-given life-principle continues to live in him, and so he cannot practice sinning, because he is born of God.

This is the way to distinguish God's children from the devil's children. No one who fails to do right is God's child, and no one who fails to love his brother.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love our brothers. Whoever does not continue to love continues still in death.

Anyone who keeps on hating his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer can have eternal life remaining in him.

We know what love is from the fact that He laid down His life for us; and so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

In this way we shall know by experience that we are on the side of the truth, and satisfy our consciences in God's sight,

Whoever practices obedience to His commands remains in union with Him and He in union with him; and in this way we know that He remains in union with us, by the Spirit that He has given us.

and no spiritual utterance which disowns Jesus can come from God; it is the utterance of Antichrist. You have heard that it is coming, and right now it is already in the world.

Whoever does not love has never come to know God by experience, because God is love.

No one has ever seen God; yet if we practice loving one another, God remains in union with us, and our love for Him attains perfection in our hearts,

We have seen and now testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.

So we know by experience and trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love continues in union with God and God in union with him.

There is no fear in love, and perfect love drives out fear, because fear pertains to punishment, and no one who is subject to fear has attained perfection in love.

Now who is it that continues to conquer the world, if it is not the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

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

And if we know that He listens to us in whatever we ask Him for, we know that we get from Him the things that we have asked Him for.

We know that no one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, but the Son who was born of God continues to keep him, and the evil one cannot touch him.

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one.

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us insight to recognize the True One; and we are in union with the True One through His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.