1 John 5

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Faith Conquers the World

5 Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. ²By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. ⁴For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. ⁵Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Testimony concerning the Son of God

⁶This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. ⁷And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁸There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree.^[a] ⁹If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has borne witness to his Son. ¹⁰He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne to his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life.

Epilogue

¹³I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. ¹⁶If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God^[b] will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. ¹⁷All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

¹⁸We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.

¹⁹We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.

²⁰And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. ²¹Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Footnotes

5.8 This reads as follows in the Vulgate: “⁷There are three who give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. ⁸And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are one.” The “Three Heavenly Witnesses,” as the first sentence is called, is first found in the Latin (fourth century) and does not appear in any Greek manuscript until the fifteenth century. It is probably a marginal gloss that found its way into the text.
1 John 5:16 Greek he

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.