1 John 1-5 (Contemporary English Version)

1 John 1

 ¹The Word that gives life

   was from the beginning,

   and this is the one

   our message is about.

   Our ears have heard,

   our own eyes have seen,

   and our hands touched

   this Word.

    ²The one who gives life appeared! We saw it happen, and we are witnesses to what we have seen. Now we are telling you about this eternal life that was with the Father and appeared to us. ³We are telling you what we have seen and heard, so that you may share in this life with us. And we share in it with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴We are writing to tell you these things, because this makes us ^[a] truly happy.

God Is Light

 ⁵Jesus told us that God is light and doesn't have any darkness in him. Now we are telling you.

    ⁶If we say that we share in life with God and keep on living in the dark, we are lying and are not living by the truth. ⁷But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away. ⁸If we say that we have not sinned, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth isn't in our hearts. ⁹But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.

    ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his message isn't in our hearts. ^[b]

1 John 2

Christ Helps Us

 ¹My children, I am writing this so that you won't sin. But if you do sin, Jesus Christ always does the right thing, and he will speak to the Father for us. ²Christ is the sacrifice that takes away our sins and the sins of all the world's people.

    ³When we obey God, we are sure that we know him. ⁴But if we claim to know him and don't obey him, we are lying and the truth isn't in our hearts. ⁵We truly love God only when we obey him as we should, and then we know that we belong to him. ⁶If we say we are his, we must follow the example of Christ.

   

The New Commandment

 ⁷My dear friends, I am not writing to give you a new commandment. It is the same one that you were first given, and it is the message you heard. ⁸But it really is a new commandment, and you know its true meaning, just as Christ does. You can see the darkness fading away and the true light already shining.

    ⁹If we claim to be in the light and hate someone, we are still in the dark. ¹⁰But if we love others, we are in the light, and we don't cause problems for them. ^{[c] 11}If we hate others, we are living and walking in the dark. We don't know where we are going, because we can't see in the dark. ¹²Children, I am writing you,

   because your sins

   have been forgiven

   in the name of Christ.

    ¹³Parents, I am writing you,

   because you have known

   the one who was there

   from the beginning.

   Young people, I am writing you,

   because you have defeated

   the evil one.

    ¹⁴Children, I am writing you,

   because you have known

   the Father.

   Parents, I am writing you,

   because you have known

   the one who was there

   from the beginning.

   Young people, I am writing you,

   because you are strong.

   God's message is firm

   in your hearts,

   and you have defeated

   the evil one.

    ¹⁵Don't love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father. ¹⁶Our foolish pride comes from this world, and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father. ¹⁷The world and the desires it causes are disappearing. But if we obey God, we will live forever.

   

The Enemy of Christ

 ¹⁸Children, this is the last hour. You heard that the enemy of Christ would appear at this time, and many of Christ's enemies have already appeared. So we know that the last hour is here. ¹⁹These people came from our own group, yet they were not part of us. If they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. But they left, which proves that they did not belong to our group.

    ²⁰Christ, the Holy One, ^[d] has blessed ^[e] you, and now all of you understand. ^{[f] 21}I did not need to write you about the truth, since you already know it. You also know that liars do not belong to the truth. ²²And a liar is anyone who says that Jesus isn't truly Christ. Anyone who says this is an enemy of Christ and rejects both the Father and the Son. ²³If we reject the Son, we reject the Father. But if we say that we accept the Son, we have the Father. ²⁴Keep thinking about the message you first heard, and you will always be one in your heart with the Son and with the Father. ²⁵The Son ^[g] has promised us ^[h] eternal life. ²⁶I am writing to warn you about those people who are misleading you. ²⁷But Christ has blessed you with the Holy Spirit. ^[i] Now the Spirit stays in you, and you don't need any teachers. The Spirit is truthful and teaches you everything. So stay one in your heart with Christ, just as the Spirit has taught you to do.

Children of God

 ²⁸Children, stay one in your hearts with Christ. Then when he returns, we will have confidence and won't have to hide in shame. ²⁹You know that Christ always does right and that everyone who does right is a child of God.

   

1 John 3

 ¹Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are. But since the people of this world did not know who Christ ^[j] is, they don't know who we are. ²My dear friends, we are already God's children, though what we will be hasn't yet been seen. But we do know that when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is. ³This hope makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ ^[k] is holy. ⁴Everyone who sins breaks God's law, because sin is the same as breaking God's law. ⁵You know that Christ came to take away sins. He isn't sinful, ⁶and people who stay one in their hearts with him won't keep on sinning. If they do keep on sinning, they don't know Christ, and they have never seen him.

    ⁷Children, don't be fooled. Anyone who does right is good, just like Christ himself. ⁸Anyone who keeps on sinning belongs to the devil. He has sinned from the beginning, but the Son of God came to destroy all that he has done. ⁹God's children cannot keep on being sinful. His life-giving power ^[l] lives in them and makes them his children, so that they cannot keep on sinning. ¹⁰You can tell God's children from the devil's children, because those who belong to the devil refuse to do right or to love each other.

Love Each Other

 ¹¹From the beginning you were told that we must love each other. ¹²Don't be like Cain, who belonged to the devil and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? He did it because his brother was good, and he was evil. ¹³My friends, don't be surprised if the people of this world hate you. ¹⁴Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don't love each other, you are still under the power of death.

    ¹⁵If you hate each other, you are murderers, and we know that murderers do not have eternal life. ¹⁶We know what love is because Jesus gave his life for us. That's why we must give our lives for each other. ¹⁷If we have all we need and see one of our own people in need, we must have pity on that person, or else we cannot say we love God. ¹⁸Children, you show love for others by truly helping them, and not merely by talking about it.

    ¹⁹When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. ²⁰But even if we don't feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. ²¹Dear friends, if we feel at ease in the presence of God, we will have the courage to come near him. ²²He will give us whatever we ask, because we obey him and do what pleases him. ²³God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ and to love each other. This is also what Jesus taught us to do. ²⁴If we obey God's commandments, we will stay one in our hearts with him, and he will stay one with us. The Spirit that he has given us is proof that we are one with him.

   

1 John 4

God Is Love

 ¹Dear friends, don't believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, ²and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. ³But when someone doesn't say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn't come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here.

    ⁴Children, you belong to God, and you have defeated these enemies. God's Spirit ^[m] is in you and is more powerful than the one that is in the world. ⁵These enemies belong to this world, and the world listens to them, because they speak its language. ⁶We belong to God, and everyone who knows God will listen to us. But the people who don't know God won't listen to us. That is how we can tell the Spirit that speaks the truth from the one that tells lies. ⁷My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God's children, and we know him. ⁸God is love, and anyone who doesn't love others has never known him. ⁹God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. ¹⁰Real love isn't our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. ¹¹Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other.

    ¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts.

    ¹³God has given us his Spirit. That is how we know that we are one with him, just as he is one with us. ¹⁴God sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. We saw his Son and are now telling others about him. ¹⁵God stays one with everyone who openly says that Jesus is the Son of God. That's how we stay one with God ¹⁶and are sure that God loves us.

   God is love. If we keep on loving others, we will stay one in our hearts with God, and he will stay one with us. ¹⁷If we truly love others and live as Christ did in this world, we won't be worried about the day of judgment. ¹⁸A real love for others will chase those worries away. The thought of being punished is what makes us afraid. It shows that we have not really learned to love.

    ¹⁹We love because God loved us first. ²⁰But if we say we love God and don't love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don't love the people we can see? ²¹The commandment that God has given us is: "Love God and love each other!"

   

1 John 5

Victory over the World

 ¹If we believe that Jesus is truly Christ, we are God's children. Everyone who loves the Father will also love his children. ²If we love and obey God, we know that we will love his children. ³We show our love for God by obeying his commandments, and they are not hard to follow.

    ⁴Every child of God can defeat the world, and our faith is what gives us this victory. ⁵No one can defeat the world without having faith in Jesus as the Son of God.

   

Who Jesus Is

 ⁶Water and blood came out from the side of Jesus Christ. It wasn't just water, but water and blood. ^[n] The Spirit tells about this, because the Spirit is truthful. ⁷In fact, there are three who tell about it. ⁸They are the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree. ⁹We believe what people tell us. But we can trust what God says even more, and God is the one who has spoken about his Son. ¹⁰If we have faith in God's Son, we have believed what God has said. But if we don't believe what God has said about his Son, it is the same as calling God a liar. ¹¹God has also said that he gave us eternal life and that this life comes to us from his Son. ¹²And so, if we have God's Son, we have this life. But if we don't have the Son, we don't have this life.

   

Knowing about Eternal Life

 ¹³All of you have faith in the Son of God, and I have written to let you know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴We are certain that God will hear our prayers when we ask for what pleases him. ¹⁵And if we know that God listens when we pray, we are sure that our prayers have already been answered.

    ¹⁶Suppose you see one of our people commit a sin that isn't a deadly sin. You can pray, and that person will be given eternal life. But the sin must not be one that is deadly. ¹⁷Everything that is wrong is sin, but not all sins are deadly.

    ¹⁸We are sure that God's children do not keep on sinning. God's own Son protects them, and the devil cannot harm them.

    ¹⁹We are certain that we come from God and that the rest of the world is under the power of the devil.

    ²⁰We know that Jesus Christ the Son of God has come and has shown us the true God. And because of Jesus, we now belong to the true God who gives eternal life.

    ²¹Children, you must stay away from idols.