¹ My children, I am writing to you to keep you from sinning; but if anyone should sin, we have one who can plead for us with the Father — Jesus Christ, the righteous —

² and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world besides.

³ And by this we know that we have learned to know him — by our laying his commands to heart.

⁴ The person who says ‘I know Jesus,’ but does not lay his commands to heart, is a liar, and the truth has no place in them;

⁵ but, whenever a person lays his message to heart, in that person the love of God has indeed reached its perfection. By this we know that we are in union with God —

⁶ He who professes to maintain union with God is himself bound to live as Christ lived.

⁷ Dear friends, it is no new command that I am writing to you, but an old command, which you have had from the first. That old command is the message to which you listened.

⁸ Yet, in a way, it is a new command that I am writing to you — manifest in Christ’s life and in your own — for the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

⁹ The person who says that they are in the light, and yet hates others, is in the darkness even now.

¹⁰ The person who loves others is always in the light, and there is nothing within them to cause them to stumble;

¹¹ while the person who hates others is in the darkness, and is living in the darkness, and does not know where they are going, because the darkness prevents them seeing.

¹² I am writing, God's children, to you, because your sins have been forgiven you for Christ’s sake.

¹³ I am writing, adults in the faith, to you, because you have learned to know him who has been from the beginning. I am writing, young ones in the faith, to you, because you have conquered the evil one. I write, children, to you, because you have learned to know the Father.

¹⁴ I write, adults in the faith, to you, because you have learned to know him who has been from the beginning. I write, young ones in the faith, to you, because you are strong, and God’s message is always in your hearts, and you have conquered the evil one.

¹⁵ Do not love the world or what the world can offer. When anyone loves the world, there is no love for the Father in them;

¹⁶ for all that the world can offer — the gratification of the earthly nature, the gratification of the eye, the pretentious life — belongs, not to the Father, but to the world.

¹⁷ And the world, and all that it gratifies, is passing away, but they who do God’s will remains for ever.

Warnings against Antichrist

¹⁸ My children, these are the last days. You were told that an antichrist was coming; and many antichrists have already arisen. By that we know that these are the last days.

¹⁹ From us, it is true, they went out, but they had never belonged to us; for, if they had belonged to us, they would have remained among us. They left us that it might be made clear that they do not, any of them, belong to us.

²⁰ You, however, have received consecration from the Holy One.

²¹ You all know — But I am not writing to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because nothing false can come from the truth.

²² Who is a liar, if not the person who rejects the truth that Jesus is the Christ? That person is the antichrist — the person who rejects the Father and the Son.

²³ No one who rejects the Son has found the Father; the person who acknowledges the Son has found the Father also.

²⁴ As for you, let what you were told at the first be always in your thoughts. If, then, what you were told at the first is always in your thoughts, you yourselves will maintain your union both with the Son and with the Father.

²⁵ And this is what he himself promised us — eternal life!

²⁶ In writing this this to you, I have in mind those who are trying to mislead you.

²⁷ But you — you still retain in your hearts that consecration which you received from the Christ, and are not in need of anyone to teach you; but, since his consecration of you teaches you about everything, and since it is a real consecration, and no lie, then, as it has taught you, maintain your union with him.

²⁸ Yes, my children, maintain your union with Christ, so that, whenever he appears, our confidence may not fail us, and we may not be ashamed to meet him at his coming.

²⁹ Knowing him to be righteous, you realize that everyone who lives righteously has received the new life from him.