¹⁶ “For this is how God loved the world: He gave^[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

¹³ There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

⁸ But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

¹⁷ Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.^[a] He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.^[b]

⁴ But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,

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.

⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.