Living in the Light

5 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

¹⁵ But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. ¹⁶ For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”^[a]

³² Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

⁴⁸ But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

³⁵ “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. ³⁶ You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.

¹² Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

⁴⁵ For I, the Lord, am the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. Therefore, you must be holy because I am holy.

3 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. ² Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.

¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.