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friends, 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. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now is already in the world.
4 Little children, you are from God, and you have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; so what they say is from the world and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but anyone with not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is perfected in us.
13 We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to rely on the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abides in God, and God in them. 17 In this way, love is perfected among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. 18 there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because He first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And the command we have from Him is this: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.