Book of Common Prayer

Christ is our advocate. Of true love, and how it is tried.

2 My little children, these things I write to you so that you do not sin. Yet if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father: Jesus Christ the Righteous, ² and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of all the world. 

³ And hereby are we sure that we know him: if we keep his commandments. ⁴ He who says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ Whoever keeps his word, in him is the love of God perfected in deed. And thereby we know that we are in him. ⁶ He who says he abides in him ought to walk even as he walked.

⁷ Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but that old commandment that you heard from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you heard from the beginning. ⁸ Again, a new commandment I write to you, a thing that is true in him and also in you. For the darkness is past and the true light now shines. ⁹ He who says that he is in the light and yet hates his brother, is in darkness even until this time. ¹⁰ He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of evil in him. ¹¹ He who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

¹² While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except that lost child, so that the scripture may be fulfilled.

¹³ Now I come to you. And I speak these words in the world so that they may have my joy full in them. ¹⁴ I have given them your words. And the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I ask not that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from evil. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them with your truth. Your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so have I sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified through the truth.