1John 4
1
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God;
because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2
Hereby know you the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is of God:
3
and every spirit that confesses not Jesus is not of God: and this is the [spirit]
of the antichrist, whereof you have heard that it comes; and now it is in the world
already.
4
You are of God, [my] little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he
who is in you than he who is in the world.
5
They are of the world: therefore speak they [as] of the world, and the world hears
them.
6
We are of God: he who knows God hears us; he who is not of God hears us not. By this
we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
7
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is
engendered of God, and knows God.
8
He who loves not knows not God; for God is love.
9
Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God has sent his only engendered
Son into the world that we might live through him.
10
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to
be] the propitiation for our sins.
11
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12
No man has beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and his
love is perfected in us:
13
hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14
And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [to be] the Saviour
of the world.
15
Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16
And we know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love; and he who
abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17
Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment;
because as he is, even so are we in this world.
18
There is no fear in love: but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment;
and he who fears is not made perfect in love.
19
We love, because he first loved us.
20
If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who loves not
his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21
And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God love his brother also.