Book of Common Prayer

¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour. You have heard that “Antimessiah” is coming—and now many Antimessiahs have appeared! That’s how we know that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from among us, but they were not really of our number. If they had been of our number, you see, they would have remained with us. This happened so that it would be made crystal clear that none of them belonged to us. ²⁰ You, however, have the anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. ²¹ I am not writing to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and you know that no liar is of the truth.

²² Who is the liar? Is it not the one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? Such a one is the Antimessiah—who denies the father and the son. ²³ Nobody who denies the son has the father. One who acknowledges the son has the father too. ²⁴ As for you: let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the son and in the father. ²⁵ And this is the promise which he himself promised us: the life of the age to come.

²⁶ I am writing to you about the people who are deceiving you. ²⁷ You have received the anointing from him; it abides in you, and you do not need to have anyone teach you. That anointing from him teaches you about everything; it is true, it isn’t a lie. So, just as he taught you, abide in him.

²⁸ And now, children, abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have boldness and may not be put to shame before him at his royal appearing. ²⁹ If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been fathered by him.

The Messiah and the father

¹⁹ So there was again a division among the Judaeans because of what Jesus had said.

²⁰ “He’s demon-possessed!” some were saying. “He’s raving mad! Why listen to him?”

²¹ “No,” said some others, “that’s not how demon-possessed people talk. Anyway, how could a demon open a blind man’s eyes?”

²² It was the Feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was walking in the Temple, in Solomon’s Porch. ²⁴ The Judaeans surrounded him.

“How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense?” they asked. “If you are the Messiah, say so out loud!”

²⁵ “I told you,” replied Jesus, “and you didn’t believe. The works which I’m doing in my father’s name give evidence about me. ²⁶ But you don’t believe, because you don’t belong to my sheep.

²⁷ “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them the life of the coming age. They will never, ever perish, and nobody can snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and nobody can snatch them out of my father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the father are one.”