This life was revealed to us, and we have seen it and testify about it. We declare to you this eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.

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.

This is the message that we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness none at all!

If we claim that we have fellowship with him but keep living in darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth.

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.

This is how we can be sure that we have come to know him: if we continually keep his commandments.

The person who says, "I have come to know him," but does not continually keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth has no place in that person.

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:

The one who says that he abides in him must live the same way he himself lived.

Dear friends, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning. This old commandment is the word you have heard.

On the other hand, I am writing to you a new commandment that is truly in him and in you. For the darkness is fading away, and the true light is already shining.

The person who says that he is in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.

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.

For everything that is in the world the desire for fleshly gratification, the desire for possessions, and worldly arrogance is not from the Father but is from the world.

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.

They left us, but they were not part of us, for if they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. Their leaving made it clear that none of them was really part of us.

Who is a liar but the person who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? The person who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist.

The message that the Son himself declared to us is eternal life.

Since you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by God.

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.

You know that the Messiah was revealed to take away sins, and there is not any sin in him.

The person who practices sin belongs to the evil one, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason that the Son of God was revealed was to destroy what the Devil has been doing.

This is the message that you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another. The person who does not love remains spiritually dead.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life present in him.

This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we will be able to keep ourselves strong in his presence.

The person who keeps his commandments abides in God, and God abides in him. This is how we can be sure that he remains in us: he has given us his Spirit.

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.

But every spirit who does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist. You have heard that he is coming, and now he is already in the world.

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 love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

This is how we know that we abide in him and he in us: he has given us his Spirit.

We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

God abides in the one who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, and he abides in God.

We have come to know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

And this is the commandment that we have from him: the person who loves God must also love his brother.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born from God, and everyone who loves the parent also loves the child.

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

because everyone who is born from God has overcome the world. Our faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Who overcomes the world? Is it not the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

The person who believes in the Son of God believes this testimony personally. The person who does not believe God has made him a liar by not believing the testimony that he has given 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.

And this is the confidence that we have in him: if we ask for anything according to his will, he listens to us.

And if we know that he listens to our requests, we can be sure that we have what we ask him for.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray that God would give him life. This applies to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not telling you to pray about that.

Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, yet there are sins that do not lead to death.

We know that the person who has been born from God does not go on sinning. Rather, the Son of God protects them, and the evil one cannot harm them.

We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one.

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.