We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

We [who teach God’s word] are from God [energized by the Holy Spirit], and whoever knows God [through personal experience] listens to us [and has a deeper understanding of Him]. Whoever is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know [without any doubt] the spirit of truth [motivated by God] and the spirit of error [motivated by Satan].

he that believeth on the son of God, hath the testimony of God thereto: he that does not believe God, impeaches his veracity, because he does not believe the testimony that God gave of his son.

We realize, too, that the Son of God has come among us, and has given us the discernment to know the True God; and we are in union with the True God by our union with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the True God and he is Immortal Life.

And God lives in the heart of the person who [continually] obeys His commands, and he lives in [fellowship with] God. And here is [another] way we know that God lives in our hearts: It is by [means of] the Holy Spirit, whom God gave to us. [See Rom. 8:9, 11; James 4:5; I Cor. 6:19].

Every person who believes that Jesus is the Christ [i.e., God's specially chosen one] has been [spiritually] conceived [and eventually born] by God. And everyone who [continually] loves God, who did the conceiving, also [must continually] love the person whom God has [spiritually] conceived.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.

No one who is a child of God commits sin, for God's nature remains in his heart, and he cannot sin, because he is a child of God.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, that God hath born of his son.