It is what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld, what our own hands have touched, about the very message of life --

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.

But if we continue to live in the light, just as He is in the light, we have unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son continues to cleanse us from every sin.

If we claim "We are already free from sin," we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in our hearts.

If we confess our sins, He is to be depended on, since He is just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from every wrong.

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.

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.

because everything that is in the world, the things that our lower nature and eyes are longing for, and the proud pretensions of life, do not come from the Father, but from the world;

They have gone out from our own number, but they did not really belong to us; for if they had, they would have stayed with us. It was to show that none of those who went out really belonged to us.

Let what you have heard from the beginning continue to live in your hearts; if you do, you will always remain in union with the Son and the Father.

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.

Whoever practices sin belongs to the devil, because the devil has practiced sin from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared, to undo the devil's works.

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.

it is so because the message that you have heard from the beginning is this: We should love one another.

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.

and we obtain from Him whatever we ask for, because we practice obedience to His commands and do what pleases Him.

Dearly beloved, stop believing every so-called spiritual utterance, but keep testing them to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

In this way you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spiritual utterance which owns that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God,

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.

We are children of God. Whoever knows God by experience listens to us; whoever is not a child of God does not listen to us. This is the way to distinguish a true spiritual utterance from one that is false.

This is the command that we get from Him, that whoever loves God loves his brother too.

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.