¹⁸ Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.^{(A) 19} And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him^{(B) 20} whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God, ²² and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.^(C)

²³ And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.^{(D) 24} All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.^(E)

The Greatest Commandment

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him.^{(A) 36} “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{(B) 38} This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’^{(C) 40} On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”^(D)