1 John 3

¹How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

²Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

³Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

⁴Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.

⁵But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.

⁶No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

⁷Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

⁸He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

⁹No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

¹⁰This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.

¹³Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

¹⁵Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

¹⁷If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

¹⁹This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence

²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

²¹Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God

²²and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

²⁴Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.