1 John 4

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

In this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ having come in the flesh is from God,

and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is that of the antichrist, which you have heard about, that it is coming, and it is now already in the world. \*

You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them because greater is the one in you than the one in the world.

They are from the world. Because of this, they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

We are from God. The one knowing God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. \*

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone loving has been begotten from God and knows God.

The one not loving does not know God, for God is love. \*

In this the love of God appeared among us, that God sent his Son, the One and Only, into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son {as the} propitiation for our sins. \*

Beloved, if God thus loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is perfected in us.

In this we know that we remain in him and he in us: that he has given us of his Spirit.

Indeed, we have seen and we testify that the Father sent the Son {as the} Savior of the world. \*

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.

And we have known and believed the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one remaining in love remains in God, and God remains in him. \*

In this, love has been perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment because, just as that one is, we also are in this world.

Fear is not in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear has punishment. So the one fearing has not been perfected in love. \*

We love because he first loved us.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving his brother, whom he has seen, is not able to love God, whom he has not seen.

Indeed, we have this commandment from him, that the one loving God should also love his brother. \*