1 John 3

₁You can be sure that the Father loves us very much. He made us his children and now we are children of God. The people of this world did not want to know God, and that is why they do not want to know us. ₂Friends, now we are children of God. We do not know what we will be like in future, but we know that when Jesus comes, we will be like Him. We will see Him as He really is. ₃Everyone who knows that Jesus will come again purifies himself so that he is holy like Jesus. ₄Everyone who sins does not do what God's laws say, because when someone does not do what God's laws say, he sins. ₅You know that Jesus came to the world to take away our sins and you know that He never sinned. ₆People who belong to Him do not go on sinning, but people who go on sinning do not believe in Him and do not know Him.

₇Friends, do not listen to people who want to teach you things that are wrong. People who do what is right are righteous, as Jesus is righteous. ₈But people who go on sinning are children of the devil because the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God came to the world to stop the devil from doing what he wants to do. ₉People who are children of God do not go on sinning, because God gave them a new life, the true_life from God. They can not go on sinning because they are God's children. ₁₀How do you know who are children of God and who are children of the devil? Children of God do what God wants and they love the other believers.

₁₁When you started to believe in Jesus, you were told that you must love each other. ₁₂Do not be like Cain. He was a child of the devil and he killed his brother. Why did he kill his brother? He did it because the things that he did were bad, but his brother did what God wants.

₁₃Friends, when the people of this world hate you, don't be surprised. ₁₄We know that we are not spiritually_dead anymore, but we live. We know this because we love the other believers. People who do not love other believers are spiritually_dead.

₁₅People who hate other believers are murderers and you know that murderers do not have eternal_life. ₁₆Jesus showed us what love is, because He died so that we may live. And we must also be willing to die so that other believers can live. ₁₇Think about someone who is rich and has enough money to buy the things that he needs, and he sees a believer who needs something, but he does not feel sorry for him and he does not help him. Can he say that the love of God is in him? No, God's love is not in that person.

₁₈Friends, we must love the other believers, but we must not only say we love them. We must do things that show we love them because we know the truth. _19-20When we do those good things, we know that God gave his truth to us. If we feel guilty and we think that God will punish us, then we must not be afraid of God's judgement because we know that God is more important than the things we feel in our hearts, and God knows everything.

₂₁Friends, we do not feel guilty and we are not afraid of God's judgement, and so we are not afraid to go to Him or to ask Him something. ₂₂And God gives us what we ask Him because we do the things that He tells us to do, things that He loves. ₂₃God wants us to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, and He wants us to love each other. Jesus said we must do it. ₂₄If we do what God says, then we live with Him and He lives with us. And we know that He lives with us because He gave us his Holy_Spirit.