Book of Common Prayer

3 See how much the Father has loved us! We are called God's children. It is true, we are God's children. People in this world did not know him and so they do not know us.

² My dear brothers, we are God's children now. No one knows yet what we shall be like. But we know that when Jesus comes, we will be like him. We will see him as he really is.

³ Everyone who has this hope about Christ makes his life holy. He makes his life holy and clean, just as Christ is holy.

⁴ Everyone who does wrong things is breaking God's law. Doing wrong things is breaking the law.

⁵ You know that Christ came to take away the wrong things people have done. He is the one who has done no wrong.

⁶ Everyone who stays with him does not do wrong things. Everyone who does wrong things has never seen him and has never known him.

⁷ My children, do not let anyone fool you. Anyone who does what is good, is good just as Christ is good.

⁸ Anyone who does what is wrong belongs to the devil. The devil has done what is wrong from the beginning. That is why God's Son came. He came to stop what the devil does.

⁹ No one who is God's child does wrong things, because God's life is in him. And he cannot keep on doing wrong things, because he is God's child.

¹⁰ This is how people can know who are God's children and who are the devil's children. Everyone who does not do right is not God's child. And anyone who does not love his brother is not God's child.

³¹ Then the leaders of the Jews picked up stones again to kill him.

³² So Jesus said to them, `I have done many good things that come from my Father. For which one of those are you going to kill me?'

³³ Then the Jewish leaders answered him, `We do not kill you for doing any good thing. But you do not respect God. You are only a man, and yet you say you are God.'

³⁴ Jesus answered them, `In your own books it is written that God said, "You are gods."

³⁶ Nothing can change the words in the holy writings. It is written that God spoke to men and that he called them gods. So he called some men gods. Then why do you say I do not respect God when I say that I am the Son of God? I am the one God chose and sent into the world.

³⁷ If I am not doing my Father's work, then do not believe me.

³⁸ But if I am doing my Father's work, believe the work that I do, even though you do not believe me. Then you will know and you will believe that my Father is in me and I am in him.'

³⁹ Because of what he said, they tried to catch Jesus again. But he got away from them.

⁴⁰ He went away again to the other side of the Jordan River. He went to the place where John [the Baptizer] was when he first baptized people. Jesus stayed there for a while.

⁴¹ Many people came to him there. They said, `John himself did not do any big work. But everything that John said about this man is true.'

⁴² Many people believed on Jesus there.