¹⁸ Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the final hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us.

²² Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.

²⁴ Therefore, as for you, let that remain in you which you heard from the beginning. If that which you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son, and in the Father. ²⁵ This is the promise which he promised us, the eternal life. ²⁶ These things I have written to you concerning those who would lead you astray.

4 Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, ³ and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.