1 John 3:8-10

J.B. Phillips New Testament

^7-9 You, my children, are younger than I am, and I don’t want you to be taken in by any clever talk just here. The man who lives a consistently good life is a good man, as surely as God is good. But the man whose life is habitually sinful is spiritually a son of the devil, for the devil is behind all sin, as he always has been. Now the Son of God came to earth with the express purpose of liquidating the devil’s activities. The man who is really God’s son does not practise sin, for God’s nature is in him, for good, and such a heredity is incapable of sin.

¹⁰ Here we have a clear indication as to who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. The man who does not lead a good life is no son of God, nor is the man who fails to love his brother.