1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this test you can 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 that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from God. And this is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was to come, and even now it is already in the world. 4You are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He Who is in you than the one who is in the world. 5They are of the world; because of this, they speak of the world, and the world listens to them. 6We are of God; the one who knows God listens to us; the one who is not of God does not listen to us. By this means we know the Spirit of the truth and the spirit of the deception.

7Beloved, we should love one another because love is from God; and everyone who loves has been begotten by God, and knows God. 8The one who does not love does not know God because God is love. 9In this way the love of God was manifested toward us: that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. 10In this act is the love--not that we loved God; rather, that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also are duty-bound to love one another. 12No one has seen God at any time. Yet, if we love one another, God dwells in us, and His own love is perfected in us. 13By this standard we know that we are dwelling in Him, and He is dwelling in us: because of His own Spirit, which He has given to us. 14And we have seen for ourselves and bear witness that the Father sent the Son as the Savior of the world.

15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. 16And we have known and have believed the love that God has toward us. God is love, and the one who dwells in love is dwelling in God, and God in him. 17By this spiritual indwelling, the love of God is perfected within us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment because even as He is, so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in the love of God; rather, perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. And the one who fears has not been made perfect in the love of God. 19We love Him because He loved us first. 20If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how is he able to love God Whom he has not seen? 21And this is the commandment that we have from Him: that the one who loves God should also love his brother.