1 John 4

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits [to see] whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

²By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses [that] Jesus Christ has come in [the] flesh is from God,

³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the [spirit] of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and [which] is already in the world at this time.

⁴You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who [is] in you than he who [is] in the world.

⁵They are of the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world listens to them.

⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

⁹This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.

¹⁰[And] love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son [as the] atoning sacrifice for our sins.

¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

¹²No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.

¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent [His] Son [to be] [the] Savior of the world.

¹⁵If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

¹⁶And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

¹⁷In this [way], love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.

¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The [one who] fears has not been perfected in love.

¹⁹We love because He first loved us.

²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” [but] hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

²¹And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.