Testing the Spirits

1Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits if they are of God: because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2In this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God: 3and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist, which you have heard that he is coming; and now he is already in the world. 4You are of God, little children, and you have conquered them; because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5They are of the world: on this account they speak of the world, and the world hears them. 6We are of God: the one knowing God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Love Comes from God

7Beloved, let us love one another with divine love: because divine love is of God; and the one loving with divine love has been born of God, and knows God. 8The one not loving with divine love does not know God; because God is divine love. 9In this the divine love of God has been made manifest in us, because God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we may live through him. 10In him is divine love, not because we loved God with divine love, but because he loved us with divine love, and sent his Son an expiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us with divine love, we ought also to love one another with divine love. 12No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another with divine love, God abides in us, and his divine love has been made perfect in us. 13In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit. 14And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent forth his Son the Saviour of the world.

15Whosoever may confess that Jesus is the Son of God, in him God abides, and he in God. 16And we have known and we have believed the divine love which God has in us. God is divine love; and the one abiding in divine love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17In this the divine love has been made perfect in us, that we may have boldness in the day of the judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in divine love; but perfect divine love casts out the fear: because the fear has torment; and the one fearing has not been made perfect in the divine love. 19Let us love with divine love, because he himself first loved us with divine love. 20If any one may say, I love God with divine love, and may hate his brother, he is a liar: for the one not loving his brother whom he has seen, with divine love, is not able to love God, whom he has not seen, with divine love. 21And we have this precept from him, that the one loving God with divine love also loves his brother with divine love.