1 The Word of life always was living, even from the beginning. We heard him. We saw him with our own eyes. We looked at him, and we touched him with our own hands. We are writing to you about this Word of life.

² This life came to earth. We saw him, and we know about him. And we tell you about this life that lives for ever. This life was with the Father and came to us.

³ We tell you also what we have seen and heard. We tell you so that you also will belong with us. And we belong with the Father and the Son.

⁴ We write these things to you so that we all will be very happy.

⁵ God is like light and he is not dark at all. That is the message we heard from him. That is the message we are telling you.

⁶ Do we say that we belong with him? And at the same time, do we live in the dark? Then what we say is not true, and what we do is not right.

⁷ Do we live in the light, as God is in the light? Then we belong with others who belong to him. And the blood of the death of Jesus Christ makes us clean from all the wrong things we have done.

⁸ Do we say, `We have no wrong ways'? Then we are fooling ourselves, and we do not know what is true.

⁹ Let us tell God about our wrong ways. God can be trusted. He does what is right. He will forgive us for the wrong things we have done. He will make us clean from all that was wrong.

¹⁰ Do we say, `We have not done anything wrong'? This is like saying that God is not true. That means we do not accept God's word.