what we have seen and heard we also proclaim to you, so that you too may have fellowship [as partners] with us. And indeed our fellowship [which is a distinguishing mark of born-again believers] is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may be without sin. And if any man is a sinner, we have a friend and helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, the upright one:

and he -- he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world,

if we keep his commandments, that is a proof that we know him.

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

whoever says he lives in Christ [that is, whoever says he has accepted Him as God and Savior] ought [as a moral obligation] to walk and conduct himself just as He walked and conducted Himself.

Yet, again, it is a new Command that I am writing to you-- manifest in Christ's life and in your own--for the Darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

Love not the world, nor let worldly things engage your affections. he that is worldly affected is a stranger to divine love.

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

But you--you still retain in your hears that consecration which you received from the Christ, and are not in need of any one to teach you; but, since his consecration of you teaches you about everything, and since it is a real consecration, and no lie, then, as it has taught you, maintain your union with him.

Since you know that He is righteous, be assured also that the man who habitually acts righteously is a child of His.

beloved, we are now the sons of God, tho' it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know, that when this change shall be, his immediate presence will give us a divine resemblance.

Everyone who is a sinner goes against the law, for sin is going against the law.

Anyone who is in him does no sin; anyone who is a sinner has not seen him and has no knowledge of him.

He who is habitually guilty of sin is a child of the Devil, because the Devil has been a sinner from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for the purpose of undoing the work of the Devil.

No one who is a child of God is habitually guilty of sin. A God-given germ of life remains in him, and he cannot habitually sin--because he is a child of God.

By this we can distinguish God's children and the Devil's children: no one who fails to act righteously is a child of God, nor he who does not love his brother man.

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He hath given us a charge to do.

My loved ones, let us have love for one another: because love is of God, and everyone who has love is a child of God and has knowledge of God.

Herein, is love: not that, we, have loved God, but that, he, loved us, and sent forth his Son, as a propitiation concerning our sins.

We can know that we are continuing in union with Him and that He is continuing in union with us, by the fact that He has given us a portion of His Spirit.

And, moreover, we have learned to know, and have accepted as a fact, the love which God has for us. God is Love; and he who lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

Fear is a stranger to love; for perfect loves excludes all fear: since pain is the object of fear, he that is affected with fear, cannot be sincere in his love.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

Everyone who believes [with a deep, abiding trust in the fact] that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed) is born of God [that is, reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose], and everyone who loves the Father also loves the child born of Him.

The fact that we love God Himself, and obey His commands, is a proof that we love God's children.

For whoever is a child of God is overcoming the world; and our faith is the victory that has overcome the world.

it appear'd by the water, and by the blood, who he was, even Jesus the Messiah; not by the water only, but by the water and by the blood: besides, the spirit is a witness too, now the spirit is truth itself.

It is a three-fold testimony--

The one who believes in the Son of God [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies confidently on Him as Savior] has the testimony within himself [because he can speak authoritatively about Christ from his own personal experience]. The one who does not believe God [in this way] has made Him [out to be] a liar, because he has not believed in the evidence that God has given regarding His Son.

And if we know [for a fact, as indeed we do] that He hears and listens to us in whatever we ask, we [also] know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us] the requests which we have asked from Him.

If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

We know that no one who is a child of God lives in sin, but He who is God's Child keeps him, and the Evil one cannot touch him.

And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.