Book of Common Prayer

⁷ My dear brothers, we must love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves others is God's child and he knows God.

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

⁹ This is how God showed his love for us. He sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

¹⁰ This is love! We did not love God, but he loved us. And he sent his Son to be the sacrifice to pay for the wrong things we have done.

¹¹ My dear brothers, if God loved us so much, we must love one another also.

¹² No man has ever seen God. But God lives in us if we love one another. And in loving one another, his love is made perfect.

¹³ He has given us of his own Spirit. That is how we know that we are in him and he is in us.

¹⁴ And we have seen and we are telling you that the Father sent his Son to save the people in the world.

¹⁵ If anyone says, `Jesus is the Son of God,' God is in him and he is in God.

¹⁶ We know and we believe that God loves us. God is love. And anyone who loves others is in God and God is in him.

¹⁷ That is why we love each other very much. Then we will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. We are like Christ in this world.

¹⁸ Where God's love is, there is no fear. God's perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. Anyone who has fear does not have perfect love.

¹⁹ We love others because God first loved us.

²⁰ If anyone says, `I love God', and he hates his brother, he is telling a lie. If he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

²¹ God gave us this law. The person who loves God must love his brother also.

⁷ When John's disciples went away, Jesus began to talk to people about John. He said, `What did you go out into the wilderness to see? Did you go out to see a tall grass moved by the wind?

⁸ What did you go out to see? A man wearing fine clothes? People who wear fine clothes live in kings' houses.

⁹ Why did you go out? To see a prophet of God? Yes, I tell you, and he is much more than a prophet.

¹⁰ He is the man the holy writings tell about. "See, I send my messenger ahead of you. He will make the way ready for you."

¹¹ `I tell you the truth. No one has ever been born who is greater than John the Baptizer. And yet the smallest one in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

¹² From the time of John until now, people try hard to break into the kingdom of heaven. And strong people take hold of it.

¹³ All the prophets and the books of the law gave God's word until John came.

¹⁴ If you will believe it, this man is the Elijah who would come.

¹⁵ Everyone who has ears, listen.