²⁴ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.^(A)

²³ “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.^(A)

¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”^(A)

¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey^(A)—whether you are slaves to sin,^(B) which leads to death,^(C) or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

⁴ You adulterous^(A) people,^[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world^(B) means enmity against God?^(C) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.^(D)

On Not Loving the World

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world.^(A) If anyone loves the world, love for the Father^[a] is not in them.^{(B) 16} For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh,^(C) the lust of the eyes,^(D) and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away,^(E) but whoever does the will of God^(F) lives forever.

Warnings Against Denying the Son

¹⁸ Dear children, this is the last hour;^(G) and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming,^(H) even now many antichrists have come.^(I) This is how we know it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us,^(J) but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.^(K)

²⁰ But you have an anointing^(L) from the Holy One,^(M) and all of you know the truth.^{[b](N) 21} I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it^(O) and because no lie comes from the truth. ²² Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.^{(P) 23} No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.^(Q)

²⁴ As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning^(R) remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.^{(S) 25} And this is what he promised us—eternal life.^(T)

²⁶ I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.^{(U) 27} As for you, the anointing^(V) you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things^(W) and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.^(X)

God’s Children and Sin

²⁸ And now, dear children,^(Y) continue in him, so that when he appears^(Z) we may be confident^(AA) and unashamed before him at his coming.^(AB)

²⁹ If you know that he is righteous,^(AC) you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.^(AD)