Book of Common Prayer

¹² Children, I am writing to you because God has forgiven the wrong things you have done. Your wrong ways have been forgiven because of what Christ did.

¹³ Fathers, I am writing to you because you know the One who has lived from the beginning. Young men, I am writing to you because you have won the victory over the devil. Children, I write to you because you know Father God.

¹⁴ Fathers, I write to you because you know him, the one who has lived from the beginning. Young men, I write to you because you are strong. You believe God's word. You have won the victory over the devil.

¹⁵ Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, he does not love the Father.

¹⁶ Nothing in the world comes from the Father. I mean the wrong things people like to do with their bodies. I mean the things people see and want to have. I mean all the things people are proud of in this life. These things come from the world, not the Father.

¹⁷ And the world will go away and all the things in it that people like to do. But the person who does what God wants him to do will live for ever.

²⁰ `I do not ask this for these people only; I ask it also for the people who will believe in me when they hear what these people say.

²¹ I do this so that the people will all be one. That is the same way with us. You, my Father, belong to me and I belong to you. I ask that they also may be joined to us. Then the world will believe that you have sent me.

²² I have made them great the way you have made me great. That makes us one, as we are one.

²³ I belong to them and you belong to me, so that they all may be really one together. Then the world will know that you have sent me and that you have loved them just as you have loved me.

²⁴ `Father, I want the people that you have given me to be with me. Then they will see that you made me great, because you loved me before you made the world.

²⁵ Father, you are the one who is right. The world has not known you. But I have known you. These people know that you have sent me.

²⁶ I have told them who you are. I will tell them again and again. Then they will love each other as much as you have loved me. And I will live in them.'