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Chapter 3
See the kind of love that the Father has given us, that we should be called God’s children! And we are! Because of this the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know Him. 2Beloved, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet been shown what we will be. We know that if He is shown, we’ll be like Him, because we’ll see Him just as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
4Everyone who does sin, does lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. 5And y’all know that He was shown so that sin would be taken away, and there’s no sin in Him. 6Everyone who lives in Him doesn’t sin. Everyone who sins has not seen Him, or knows Him. 7Little Children, don’t let anyone deceive you. Everyone who does right is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8The person who sins is from the devil. 9Everyone who is born of God doesn’t sin, because His seed is in him, and he can’t sin because he’s been born of God. 10This is how God’s children and the devil’s children can be told: anyone who doesn’t do right isn’t from God, neither is anyone who doesn’t love his brother.
11Now, this is the message y’all have heard from the beginning, that we should love each other. 12We shouldn’t be like Cain who was from the evil one and who murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s works were right. 13Brothers! Don’t be surprised if the world hates you. 14We know that we’ve gone from death and into life because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love lives in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and y’all know that no murderer has eternal life in him. 16This is how we know love, He laid down His life for us, and we should lay down our lives for the brothers. 17If someone has the wealth of the world, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how can God’s Love live in him?
18Little children, let’s not love in word or in tongue, but in work and truth. 19This is how we know that we are from Truth, and we will assure our hearts in front of Him 20whenever our heart condemns us, because God is greater than our heart, and He knows all things. 21Beloved, if our heart doesn’t condemn us, we will have boldness in front of God 22and whatever we ask from Him we’ll get, because we keep His commandments and we do what is pleasing before Him. 23And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and we should love each other, just as Christ commanded us. 24And whoever keeps His commandments lives in God, and God lives in him. This is how we know that He lives in us: by the Spirit He has given to us.
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