1 John 1-3

International Children’s Bible

God Forgives Our Sins

We write to you about the Word^[a] that gives life. ² He who gives life was shown to us. We saw him, and we can give proof about it. And now we tell you that he has life that continues forever. The one who gives this life was with God the Father. God showed him to us. ³ Now we tell you what we have seen and heard because we want you to have fellowship with us. The fellowship we share together is with God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to you so that we may be full of joy.^[b]

⁵ Here is the message we have heard from God and now tell to you: God is light,^[c] and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ So if we say that we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, then we are liars. We do not follow the truth. ⁷ God is in the light. We should live in the light, too. If we live in the light, we share fellowship with each other. And when we live in the light, the blood of the death of Jesus, God’s Son, is making us clean from every sin.

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins. We can trust God. He does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrongs we have done. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, then we make God a liar. We do not accept God’s true teaching.

Jesus Is Our Helper

2 My dear children, I write this letter to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have Jesus Christ to help us. He is the Righteous One. He defends us before God the Father. ² Jesus died in our place to take away our sins. And Jesus is the way that all people can have their sins taken away, too.

³ If we obey what God has told us to do, then we are sure that we truly know God. ⁴ If someone says, “I know God!” but does not obey God’s commands, then he is a liar. The truth is not in him. ⁵ But if someone obeys God’s teaching, then God’s love has truly arrived at its goal in him. This is how we know that we are following God: ⁶ Whoever says that God lives in him must live as Jesus lived.

The Command to Love Others

⁷ My dear friends, I am not writing a new command to you. It is the same command you have had since the beginning. It is the teaching you have already heard. ⁸ But I am writing a new command to you. This command is true; you can see its truth in Jesus and in yourselves. The darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

⁹ Someone says, “I am in the light.”^[d] But if he hates his brother, he is still in the darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him that will cause him to do wrong. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in darkness. He lives in darkness and does not know where he is going. The darkness has made him blind.

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ These are the evil things in the world: wanting things to please our sinful selves, wanting the sinful things we see, being too proud of the things we have. But none of those things comes from the Father. All of them come from the world. ¹⁷ The world is passing away. And everything that people want in the world is passing away. But the person who does what God wants lives forever.

Reject the Enemies of Christ

¹⁸ My dear children, the end is near! You have heard that the Enemy of Christ is coming. And now many enemies of Christ are already here. So we know that the end is near. ¹⁹ Those enemies of Christ were in our group. But they left us. They did not really belong with us. If they were really part of our group, then they would have stayed with us. But they left. This shows that none of them really belonged with us.

²⁰ You have the gift^[e] that the Holy One gave you. So you all know the truth.^{[f] 21} Why do I write to you? Do I write because you do not know the truth? No, I write this letter because you do know the truth. And you know that no lie comes from the truth.

²² So who is the liar? It is the person who says Jesus is not the Christ. A person who says Jesus is not the Christ is the enemy of Christ. He does not believe in the Father or in his Son. ²³ If anyone does not believe in the Son, he does not have the Father. But whoever accepts the Son has the Father, too.

²⁴ Be sure that you continue to follow the teaching that you heard from the beginning. If you continue in that teaching, you will stay in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is what the Son promised to us—life forever.

²⁶ I am writing this letter about those people who are trying to lead you the wrong way. ²⁷ Christ gave you a special gift. You still have this gift in you. So you do not need any other teacher. The gift he gave you teaches you about everything. This gift is true, not false. So continue to live in Christ, as his gift taught you.

²⁸ Yes, my dear children, live in him. If we do this, we can be without fear on the day when Christ comes back. We will not need to hide and be ashamed when he comes. ²⁹ You know that Christ is righteous. So you know that all who do what is right are God’s children.

We Are God’s Children

3 The Father has loved us so much! He loved us so much that we are called children of God. And we really are his children. But the people in the world do not understand that we are God’s children, because they have not known him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God. We have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him. We will see him as he really is. ³ Christ is pure. And every person who has this hope in Christ keeps himself pure like Christ.

⁴ When a person sins, he breaks God’s law. Yes, sinning is the same as living against God’s law. ⁵ You know that Christ came to take away sins. There is no sin in Christ. ⁶ So the person who lives in Christ does not go on sinning. If he goes on sinning, he has never really understood Christ and has never known him.

⁷ Dear children, do not let any person lead you the wrong way. Christ is righteous. To be like Christ, a person must do what is right. ⁸ The devil has been sinning since the beginning. Anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s work.

⁹ When God makes someone his child, that person does not go on sinning. The new life God gave that person stays in him. So he is not able to go on sinning, because he has become a child of God. ¹⁰ So we can see who God’s children are and who the devil’s children are. Those who do not do what is right are not children of God. And anyone who does not love his brother is not a child of God.

We Must Love Each Other

¹¹ This is the teaching you have heard from the beginning: We must love each other. ¹² Do not be like Cain who belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. He killed his brother because the things Cain did were evil, and the things his brother did were good.

¹³ Brothers, do not be surprised when the people of this world hate you. ¹⁴ We know that we have left death and have come into life. We know this because we love our brothers in Christ. Whoever does not love is still in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.^[g] And you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. ¹⁶ This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ Suppose a believer is rich enough to have all that he needs. He sees his brother in Christ who is poor and does not have what he needs. What if the believer does not help the poor brother? Then the believer does not have God’s love in his heart. ¹⁸ My children, our love should not be only words and talk. Our love must be true love. And we should show that love by what we do.

^19-20 This is the way we know that we belong to the way of truth. When our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God. God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

²¹ My dear friends, if we do not feel that we are doing wrong, we can be without fear when we come to God. ²² And God gives us the things we ask for. We receive these things because we obey God’s commands, and we do what pleases him. ²³ This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love each other, just as he commanded. ²⁴ The person who obeys God’s commands lives in God. And God lives in him. How do we know that God lives in us? We know because of the Spirit whom God gave us.