4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world.
4:4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
4:5 They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.
4:6 We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; the one who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
4:7 Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
4:8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
4:9 By this the love of God was revealed ①in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him.
▷ ①Or among us; or in our case
4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the ①propitiation for our sins.
▷ ①I.e., means of reconciliation with God by atoning for sins; or sin-offering
4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.
4:13 By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit.
4:14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has ①for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
▷ ①Lit in
4:17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world.
4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear ①involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
▷ ①Lit has
4:19 We love, because He first loved us.
4:20 If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.