(My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.) But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One,

The one who says "I have come to know God" and yet does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in such a person.

But the one who hates his fellow Christian is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

And the world is passing away with all its desires, but the person who does the will of God remains forever.

Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either. The person who confesses the Son has the Father also.

(See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God's children -- and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him.

Everyone who resides in him does not sin; everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him.

Everyone who has been fathered by God does not practice sin, because God's seed resides in him, and thus he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are revealed: Everyone who does not practice righteousness -- the one who does not love his fellow Christian -- is not of God.

We know that we have crossed over from death to life because we love our fellow Christians. The one who does not love remains in death.

Dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have confidence in the presence of God,

but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.

We are from God; the person who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If anyone says "I love God" and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

(The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.)

The one who has the Son has this eternal life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have this eternal life.

We know that everyone fathered by God does not sin, but God protects the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him.