⁷ Dear friends,^(A) I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.^(B) This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸ Yet I am writing you a new command;^(C) its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing^(D) and the true light^(E) is already shining.^(F)

¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.^(A) And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.^{(B) 17} If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them,^(C) how can the love of God be in that person?^{(D) 18} Dear children,^(E) let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.^(F)

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another,^(A) for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God^(B) and knows God.^{(C) 8} Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.^{(D) 9} This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^(E) into the world that we might live through him.^{(F) 10} This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us^(G) and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.^{(H) 11} Dear friends,^(I) since God so loved us,^(J) we also ought to love one another.^{(K) 12} No one has ever seen God;^(L) but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.^(M)

¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.^(A) Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.^{(B) 17} This is how love is made complete^(C) among us so that we will have confidence^(D) on the day of judgment:^(E) In this world we are like Jesus.