1 John 4

God Is Love, and Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

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Test the Spirits

4:1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

4:2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is from God,

4:3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and is already in the world now.

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

4:5They are from the world; for this reason they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

4:6We are from God. The one who 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

4:7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

4:8The one who does not love has not come to know God, because God is love.

4:9In this the love of God was manifested among us: God has sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

4:10In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as propitiation for our sins.

4:11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

4:12No one has ever beheld God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been brought to completion in us.

4:13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.

4:14And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.

4:15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in that person, and that person in God.

4:16And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has among us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in that person.

In This Love Has Been Brought to Fullness

4:17In this love has been brought to completion with us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment: because just as He is, so are we in this world.

4:18There is no fear in love, but complete love casts fear out, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears has not been brought to completion in love.

4:19We love because He first loved us.

4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

4:21And this commandment we have from Him: the one who loves God must love his brother also.

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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.