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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whoever has earthly possessions and notices a brother in need and yet withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God be present in him?

If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in the presence of God.

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.

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.

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.

Little children, you belong to God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

We belong to God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

Dear friends, let us continuously love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.

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

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.

Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love one another.

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

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.

We love because God first loved us.

Whoever says, "I love God," but hates his brother is a liar. The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen.

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.

For this demonstrates our love for God: We keep his commandments, and his commandments are not difficult,

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?

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.

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.

This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is found in his Son.

The person who has the Son has this life. The person who does not have the Son of God does not have this life.

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.

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.

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.