Book of Common Prayer

2 My children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not do wrong things. But if anyone does something wrong, we have a Friend to help us. He speaks to God for us. He is Jesus Christ who does what is right.

² He himself is the sacrifice God offered to pay for the wrong we have done. And he pays for the wrong things all people in all the world have done.

³ We can be sure that we know him when we obey his laws.

⁴ If any man says, `I know him' and does not obey his laws, he is telling a lie. He does not know what is true.

⁵ But if any man obeys his word, he really loves God. Here is the way that we may be sure that we belong to him.

⁶ If any man says he belongs to him, he must live in the same way Christ lived.

⁷ My dear brothers, I am not writing you a new law. This is an old law. You had it from the beginning. The old law is the word which you have heard.

⁸ But in a way, I am writing you a new law. The darkness is going away and the true light is shining already.

⁹ Does anyone say he is in the light, and hates his brother? Then he is still in the dark.

¹⁰ The man who loves his brother lives in the light. There is nothing in him to make him do wrong.

¹¹ But the man who hates his brother is in the dark. He lives in the dark. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind.

¹² While I was with them, I took care of them in your name, which you gave me. I have taken care of them. Only one of them is lost. That is the one who was born to be lost. What your book says came true.

¹³ Now I am coming to you. `I say these things while I am in the world so that they may be very glad, as I am.

¹⁴ I have told them what you said. The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world. So also, I do not belong to the world.

¹⁵ I do not ask you to take them out of the world. But I ask you to take care of them, so that the evil one of this world will not harm them.

¹⁶ They do not belong to the world, even as I do not belong to the world.

¹⁷ Make them clean by the true word and keep them for yourself. Your word is true.

¹⁸ I have sent them into the world as you sent me into the world.

¹⁹ I have made myself clean and kept myself for them, so that they may be clean and be kept for you also by the truth.