What we have seen and heard we declare to you so that you, too, can have fellowship with us. Now this fellowship of ours is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus, the Messiah.

We are writing these things so that our joy may be full.

If we say that we do not have any sin, we are deceiving ourselves and we're not being truthful to ourselves.

If we say that we have never sinned, we make him a liar and his word has no place in us.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you might not sin. Yet if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus, the Messiah, one who is righteous.

It is he who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world's.

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 have written to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. I have written to you, young people, because you are strong and because God's word remains in you and you have overcome the evil one.

Stop loving the world and the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, the Father's love is not in him.

And the world and its desires are fading away, but the person who does God's will remains forever.

Little children, it is the last hour. Just as you heard that an antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.

The anointing you received from God abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you this. Instead, because God's anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not a lie, abide in him, as he taught you to do.

See what kind of love the Father has given us: We are called God's children and that is what we are! For this reason the world does not recognize us, because it did not recognize him, either.

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.

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.

This is how God's children and the Devil's children are distinguished. No person who fails to practice righteousness and to love his brother is from God.

Do not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because what he was doing was evil and his brother's actions were righteous.

So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.

Dear friends, stop believing every spirit. Instead, test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

This is how you can recognize God's Spirit: Every spirit who acknowledges that Jesus the Messiah has become human and remains so is from God.

These people belong to the world. That is why they speak from the world's perspective, and the world listens to them.

This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him.

This is how we know that we love God's children: we love God and keep his commandments.

If we accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater, because it is the testimony of God and because he has testified about his Son.

I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true God. We are in union with the one who is true, his Son Jesus the Messiah, who is the true God and eternal life.