³⁴ “A new command^(A) I give you: Love one another.^(B) As I have loved you, so you must love one another.^(C)

³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”^(A)

⁹ “As the Father has loved me,^(A) so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands,^(B) you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.^{(C) 12} My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.^{(D) 13} Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.^{(E) 14} You are my friends^(F) if you do what I command.^{(G) 15} I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.^{(H) 16} You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you^(I) so that you might go and bear fruit^(J)—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.^{(K) 17} This is my command: Love each other.^(L)

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)

¹³ This is how we know^(N) that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.^{(O) 14} And we have seen and testify^(P) that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.^{(Q) 15} If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,^(R) God lives in them and they in God.^{(S) 16} And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.^(T) Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.^{(U) 17} This is how love is made complete^(V) among us so that we will have confidence^(W) on the day of judgment:^(X) In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,^(Y) because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.^{(Z) 20} Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister^(AA) is a liar.^(AB) For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen,^(AC) cannot love God, whom they have not seen.^{(AD) 21} And he has given us this command:^(AE) Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.^(AF)