A Living Sacrifice

12 Therefore, I urge you,^(A) brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,^(B) holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform^(C) to the pattern of this world,^(D) but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.^(E) Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is^(F)—his good, pleasing^(G) and perfect will.

On Not Loving the World

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world.^(A) If anyone loves the world, love for the Father^[a] is not in them.^{(B) 16} For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh,^(C) the lust of the eyes,^(D) and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away,^(E) but whoever does the will of God^(F) lives forever.

Warnings Against Denying the Son

¹⁸ Dear children, this is the last hour;^(G) and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming,^(H) even now many antichrists have come.^(I) This is how we know it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us,^(J) but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.^(K)

²⁰ But you have an anointing^(L) from the Holy One,^(M) and all of you know the truth.^{[b](N) 21} I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it^(O) and because no lie comes from the truth. ²² Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.^{(P) 23} No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.^(Q)