¹Behold what love the Father has given to us, that we may be called children of God, and we are! Because of this the world does not know us, because it did not know him.

²Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed; now we know that when He shall appear, we will be like Him, for we will behold Him even as He is.

³And everyone who is having this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.

⁴Everyone who is committing the sin also commits the lawlessness, and the sin is the lawlessness.

⁵And you know that He appeared so that He may take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

⁶Anyone abiding in Him does not sin; anyone who is sinning has not seen Him nor has he known Him.

⁷Little children, no one should lead you astray; the one who practices the righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.

⁸The one practicing the sin is of the accuser, because from the beginning the accuser has been sinning. For this reason the Son of God was revealed, so that He may destroy the works of the accuser.

⁹Anyone born of God does not practice sin, because his seed abides in him; and he is not able to continue sinning, because he has been born of God.

¹⁰Through this the children of God and the children of the accuser are manifest. Anyone not practicing righteousness is not of God, and also the one not loving his brother;

¹¹for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we may love one another;

¹²not even as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother; and because of what did he slay him? Because his works were evil, however those of his brother righteous.

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

¹⁴We ourselves know that we have passed from the death to the life, because we love our brothers; the one not loving the brother abides in the death.

¹⁵Everyone who is hating his brother is a murderer; and you know that any murderer has not eternal life abiding in him.

¹⁶By this we have known the selfless love, because he laid down his life for us; and we ourselves ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

¹⁷But whoever has the goods of the world and sees his brother having need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the selfless love of God abide in him?

¹⁸My little children, we may not love in word nor in the tongue, but in action and in truth.

¹⁹And by this we will know that we are of the truth and before Him we will assure our heart,

²⁰that if our heart shall condemn us, that God is greater than our heart and He knows all things.

²¹Beloved, if our heart shall not condemn us, we have confidence toward God,

²²and whatever we shall ask we receive from Him, because we keep his commandments and we do the things pleasing before Him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we may trust in the name of his Son Jesus the Anointed One and we may love one another, even as He gave the commandment to us.

²⁴And the one keeping his commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given to us.