1 John 3:11-4:21

International Children’s Bible

We Must Love Each Other

¹¹ This is the teaching you have heard from the beginning: We must love each other. ¹² Do not be like Cain who belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. He killed his brother because the things Cain did were evil, and the things his brother did were good.

¹³ Brothers, do not be surprised when the people of this world hate you. ¹⁴ We know that we have left death and have come into life. We know this because we love our brothers in Christ. Whoever does not love is still in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.^[a] And you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. ¹⁶ This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ Suppose a believer is rich enough to have all that he needs. He sees his brother in Christ who is poor and does not have what he needs. What if the believer does not help the poor brother? Then the believer does not have God’s love in his heart. ¹⁸ My children, our love should not be only words and talk. Our love must be true love. And we should show that love by what we do.

^19-20 This is the way we know that we belong to the way of truth. When our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God. God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

²¹ My dear friends, if we do not feel that we are doing wrong, we can be without fear when we come to God. ²² And God gives us the things we ask for. We receive these things because we obey God’s commands, and we do what pleases him. ²³ This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love each other, just as he commanded. ²⁴ The person who obeys God’s commands lives in God. And God lives in him. How do we know that God lives in us? We know because of the Spirit whom God gave us.

Warning Against False Teachers

4 My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they are from God. ² This is how you can know God’s Spirit: One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. ³ Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God but is the spirit of the Enemy of Christ. You have heard that the Enemy of Christ is coming. And now he is already in the world.

⁴ My dear children, you belong to God. So you have defeated them because God’s Spirit, who is in you, is greater than the devil, who is in the world. ⁵ And they belong to the world. What they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ But we are from God, and those who know God listen to us. But those who are not from God do not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.

Love Comes from God

⁷ Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. The person who loves has become God’s child and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. ¹⁰ True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. God sent his Son to die in our place to take away our sins.

¹¹ That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. ¹² No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal. It is made perfect in us.

¹³ We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because God gave us his Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. That is what we teach. ¹⁵ If someone says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” then God lives in him. And he lives in God. ¹⁶ And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. ¹⁷ If God’s love is made perfect in us, then we can be without fear on the day God judges us. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like him. ¹⁸ Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. So love is not made perfect in the person who has fear.

¹⁹ We love because God first loved us. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. He can see his brother, but he hates him. So he cannot love God, whom he has never seen. ²¹ And God gave us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.