1 Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but put the spirits to the test to find out whether they come from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and 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; you have heard that it is coming, and it is in the world already now.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, for greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
5 They are of the world; that is why they speak as the world speaks, and the world hears them.
6 We are of God. Whoever knows God hears us; whoever is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been begotten of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love has not known God, because God is love.
9 In this the love of God appeared among us: God sent his only begotten Son into the world so that through him we might have life.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we too are bound to love one another.
12 No one has ever beheld God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love has been brought to completion in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us from his Spirit.
14 And we have seen, and we testify, that the Father sent the Son to be Savior of the world.
15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.
16 And we have come to know and to believe the love God has toward us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 In this, love has been made complete among us, so that we may have boldness on the day of judgment: because as he is, so also are we in this world.
18 Fear has no place in love; rather, perfect love drives fear out, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears has not been made complete in love.
19 We love him because he loved us first.
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 And we have this commandment from him: the one who loves God is to love his brother as well.