1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ having come in the flesh is from God,
3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.
4You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them, because greater is the one in you than the one in the world.
5They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
6We are from God; the one who knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love.
9By this the love of God was revealed among us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
10In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins.
11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is brought to completion in us.
13By this we know that we remain in him and he in us: because he has given us of his Spirit.
14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.
15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.
16And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17By this love has been brought to completion with us, so that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because just as that one is, so also are we in this world.
18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and the one who fears has not been brought to completion in love.
19We love, because he first loved us.
20If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21And this commandment we have from him: that the one who loves God should also love his brother.
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