4Verse 1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.Verse 2By this+you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,Verse 3but every spirit that does not confess+that Jesus+Christ has come in the flesh is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now in the world already.Verse 4You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.Verse 5They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.Verse 6We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
God Is Love
Verse 7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.Verse 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.Verse 9In this the love of God was revealed among us, that God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.Verse 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.Verse 11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.Verse 12No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.Verse 13We know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit.Verse 14And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.Verse 15If anyone confesses that+Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.Verse 16And we have come to know and to trust in the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God+abides in him.Verse 17In this way, love is perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.Verse 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love.Verse 19We love+him because he first loved us.Verse 20Whoever says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother is a liar. For+if anyone does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?Verse 21And this is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.