1 John.
1 John 1.
1 He was in the beginning. We heard him, our eyes saw him, we examined and our hands touched—
It’s about the living word, 2 and the life was revealed.
We saw, witness, and proclaim to you the life of the next age,
who’s from the Father and revealed to us.
3 We’d seen and heard; we proclaim this to you so you could also have a relationship with us.
Our relationship is with the Father and with his son, Christ Jesus.
4 We write you this so our joy would be fulfilled.
5 This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you:
God is light. To him, darkness is nothing.
6 When we say we have a relationship with him yet walk in darkness, we lie; we don’t act in truth.
7 When we walk in the light like him, who’s in light, we have a relationship with one another,
and his son Jesus’s blood cleanses us of every sin.
8 When we say we have no sin, we lead ourselves astray; truth’s not in us.
9 When we admit our sins, this is faith and rightness.
Thus God can forgive us of sin and cleanse us from all wrongness.
10 When we say we don’t sin, we make a liar of God: His word’s not in us.
1 John 2.
1 My children, I write these things to you so you won’t sin.
When anyone sins, we have an aide from the Father: Righteous Christ Jesus.
2 He’s the atonement for our sins.
Not only for ours, but for the whole world’s.
3 In this way we know we’ve known him: When we keep his commands.
4 Saying, “I’ve known him,” and not keeping his commands: It’s a lie, and truth isn’t in this.
5 God’s love is truly achieved this way: In whoever can keep God’s word.
In this way we know they’re in God.
6 Any of you saying you owe Jesus loyalty:
You’re to walk in the same way he walked.
7 Loved ones, I write you no new command, but an old command,
one you've had from the beginning. The old command is the message you heard.
8 Wait… I do write you a new command. It's truth, in Jesus as in you.
Because the dark passes on, and the true light shines now.
9 Anyone who claims to be in the Light, and hates their fellow Christian,
is currently in the dark.
10 Anyone who loves a fellow Christian lives in the light. No exceptions.
11 Anyone who hates their fellow Christian is in the dark, walks in the dark,
and doesn't know where to go because the dark blinded their eyes.
12 I write you, little children—your sins have been forgiven in Jesus’s name!
13 I write you, parents—you’ve come to know him first.
I write you, teenagers—you’ve conquered evil.
14 I wrote you, toddlers—you’ve come to know the Father.
I wrote you, parents—you’ve come to know him first.
I wrote you, teenagers—you’re strong and God’s message stays in you all, and you’ve conquered evil.
15 Don’t love the universe or the things in the universe.
If any one of you love the universe, love for the Father isn’t in you.
16 Anything in the universe—what feels good, what looks good, the interesting adventures you can brag about.
Such stuff isn’t from the Father, but is from the universe.
17 And the universe is passing away! So are its “benefits.”
The doer of God’s will lives in eternity.
18 Children, it’s the last hour, and just as you heard “Antichrist is coming!”
many antichrists have happened already—so we know it’s the last hour.
19 They came from us. But they weren’t one of us, for if they were, they’d have stayed.
But this should reveal they aren’t from any of us.
20 You all have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. You’ve all known this.
21 I didn’t write you because you haven’t known the truth,
since you’ve known it already, and that every false thing isn’t from the truth.
22 If anyone is false, it’d be the one who challenges, “Jesus isn’t Christ.”
That’s the antichrist: The one who challenges the Father and the Son.
23 Anyone who challenges the Son but hasn’t challenged the Father
is in fact challenging the Son, and has challenged the Father.
24 You heard what’s from the beginning. Stick with it.
If what you heard from the beginning stayed in you all, and you in the Son, then you’ll stay in the Father.
25 This is the promise which the Father promised us: Perpetual life.
26 I write these things to you about your deceivers.
You anointed folks took from the One who lives in you, and you haven’t any need that anyone’d teach you.
But just as the Spirit’s anointing teaches you about everything, and is true and isn’t false:
However much he teaches you, stick with it.
26 I’ve written these things to you about the people trying to lead all of you astray.
27 And you—the anointing which you all got from the Spirit lives in you.
You’re not short of people to teach you.
Instead, while you have your anointing, the Spirit teaches you about everything.
He’s true, not fake. Stick to what he taught you.
28 Now children, stay in Jesus, so that when he’s revealed we’d be welcoming,
and not ashamed of ourselves at his invasion.
29 Once you’ve all come to know that he’s right,
you know it’s also true that every worker does the right thing when you’ve been produced by him.
1 John 3.
1 You all must see love of this sort. The Father’s given it to us so we’d be called God’s children—and we are.
The universe doesn’t know us for this reason: It’s not known him.
2 Loved ones, we’re now God’s children, and—though it hasn’t happened yet—
once Jesus is revealed, what then will we be?
We’ve known that once Jesus is revealed, we’ll become the same as him,
so that we’ll see him as he is.
3 Every one of you having this hope in Jesus are making yourselves ritually clean,
as pure as Jesus is.
4 Every sinner works against the Law as well. Sin’s against the Law.
5 You’ve known that this was revealed so Jesus would take away sins, and sin isn’t in him.
6 Everyone currently dwelling in Jesus doesn’t sin.
Everyone currently sinning hasn’t seen him, nor knows him.
7 Children, no one must deceive you:
Doing the right thing is right, just like this Law is right.
8 Doing sin is from the devil: The devil sinned since the beginning.
God’s Son was revealed for this reason: He can destroy the devil’s works.
9 Everyone from God doesn’t do sin: God’s seed lives in them.
They’re not empowered to sin: They were rebirthed by God.
10 God’s children, and the devil’s children, are known for this reason:
Everyone who doesn’t do right, who doesn’t love their Christian family, isn’t from God.
11 This is the information we heard that’s from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Not like Cain: He was acting out of evil and cut his brother’s throat.
For what reason did Cain cut his throat?
Because his works were evil, while those of his brother were right.
13 Don’t make a big deal of it, Christians, if the universe doesn’t tolerate you.
14 We’ve known this because we’ve moved on out of death into life; because we’ve loved fellow Christians.
You who don’t love them still live in death. 15 All of you who hate your fellow Christian are murderers,
and you’ve known that any murderer doesn’t have perpetual life within them.
16 We’ve recognized what love is in this way: One laid down his soul for us.
We ought, for our fellow Christians, to lay down our souls.
17 If you have a universe-focused life and you see your fellow Christian in need,
and you shut off your sympathy to them—how can God’s love dwell in you?
18 Children, we shouldn’t love in a message, nor in a tongue,
but in a work, and in a truth. 19 This way, we know that we’re from the truth.
We’ll persuade our hearts to follow God 20 so that if the heart sees a flaw in us,
then God is greater than our hearts, and knows everything.
21 Beloved, when the heart doesn’t see a flaw, we can be completely open to God,
22 and when we ask of God, we receive from him so we can keep his commands
and we can do pleasing things before him.
23 It’s God’s command so that we might trust the name of his Son, Christ Jesus,
and we might love one another, just as he gave a command to us.
24 You keepers of God’s commands live in him, and he in you.
We come to know this because he lives in us by the Spirit whom he gave to us.
1 John 4.
1 Beloved, don’t trust every spirit, but put the spirits to the test to see if they’re from God,
because many fake prophets have been coming out of the universe.
2 This is how you recognize God’s spirit:
Any spirit who agrees Christ Jesus was incarnate is from God.
3 Any spirit who doesn’t agree Jesus is from God, isn’t.
This is from the antichrist, whom you’ve heard is coming.
He’s already in the world now.
4 You’re from God, children; you’ve conquered them
because he who’s in you is great, compared with he who’s in the universe.
5 Those from the universe exist because this is in the universe:
They speak, and the universe listens to them.
6 We who are from God exist; knowers of God listen to us.
Whoever isn’t from God doesn’t listen to us.
This is how we know the true spirit and the misleading spirit.
7 Beloved, we can love one another
only because love is something which comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been produced by, and knows, God.
8 Everyone who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love.
9 God’s love for us was revealed like this:
God sent his one and only Son into the universe, so we could live through him.
10 Love is like this: Not because we loved God,
but because he loved us, and sent his Son to cover over our sins.
11 Beloved, this is how much God loved us.
We’re obligated to love one another.
12 No one’s ever seen God, yet when we love one another, God’s with us.
His love’s been expressed in us, 13 so this is how we get to know we’re with him and he’s with us.
He’s given us his Spirit.
14 We’ve seen, we’ve witnessed, how the Father sent the Son to save the world.
15 When anyone agrees Jesus is the Son of God, God’s in them and they’re in God.
16 The love God has is in us. We’ve known and believed it. God is love.
Those who stay in love, stay in God, and God stays in them.
17 Love is expressed this way among us, so we can be confident on Judgment Day:
In this world, we can be like he is.
18 There’s no fear in love. Total love throws fear out,
because fear focuses only on hellfire. The fearful don’t express love.
19 We love because God loved us first.
20 When anyone says they love God, yet hates their fellow Christian, they lie:
Those who hate their fellow Christian, whom they can see, can’t love God, whom they can’t.
21 Plus we have this command from him: If you love God, love your fellow Christian.
1 John 5.
1 Everyone believing Jesus is Christ has been produced by God,
and everyone loving the producer loves those he’s produced.
2 This is how we know this: We love God’s children whenever we love God and we practice his commands.
3 For God’s love itself is here so that we’d keep his commands.
His commands aren’t difficult, 4 because everything produced by God is victorious over the universe.
This is the victor, claiming victory over the universe: Our trust in God.
5 Who’s the victor over the universe, if not you who believe that Jesus is God’s Son?
6 Jesus is the one who came through water and blood:
Christ Jesus the Messiah, not only by the water, but by the water and blood.
The Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 Thus three are witnesses: 8 The Spirit, water, and blood. The three are one in this.
9 If we accept a human witness then God’s witness is greater,
since this is God’s witness: He’s witnessed his Son.
10 You who trust in God’s Son have the witness in yourself.
You who don’t trust in God have invented a fake god,
so you haven’t trusted in the witness which God’s witnessed about his Son.
11 This is the witness: God gave us perpetual life, and this life’s in his Son.
12 One having the Son has this life. One not having God’s Son doesn’t have this life.
13 I wrote you so you might’ve known you have perpetual life—
to you believers in the name of God’s Son.
14 This is the level of conversational freedom which we have with God:
When we request anything, if it corresponds to his will, he hears us.
15 Once we’ve known he hears us when we request anything,
we’ve known we have what’s been requested, which we’ve requested from him.
16 When any of you saw your fellow Christian sinning a non-capital sin,
you’ll ask, and God will give life to the non-capital sinner.
Sin is a capital crime. I say you should ask nothing about that.
17 Anything unfair is sin, and that sin isn’t capital.
18 We’ve known that everything that’s been generated by God isn’t sin,
but you who were generated by God guard it, and evil doesn’t grasp you.
19 We’ve known that we’re from God, and the whole universe bows down to evil.
20 We’ve known the Son of God comes and has given us understanding
so we might know the truth, and we’re in the truth by his Son, Christ Jesus.
This is the true God and perpetual life.
21 Children, keep yourselves from idols.