1 Just think about this. God our father, he really loves us a lot. He loves us so much that he takes us into his family, and he says that we are his kids. And that’s true. We really are God’s kids. But the people that belong to this world, they don’t know God, so they don’t understand that we are God’s kids.[a]

2 My friends, we are already God’s kids now, and that’s a really good thing. But later, on the day when Jesus comes back, God will do even more good things for us. You see, on that day, God will change us, so that we will be like Jesus. We don’t understand everything about that yet, but we know for sure that it will happen. Yes, we will see Jesus, we will see what he is like, and we will become just like him. 3 All of us mob believe that, and it makes us really happy. And we try to be like Jesus now. You know that Jesus is properly good, he never does anything bad. So we always try to keep away from doing anything bad too.

4 You know that God’s law tells people the right way to live. So if anyone keeps on doing bad things, they are going against God’s law. That’s right. People that do bad things, they break God’s law. 5 But Jesus came to this earth to take away the bad things that people do. And you know that Jesus never did anything bad at all.[b]

6 So if anyone is joined up with Jesus, they will not keep on doing bad things. If anyone keeps on doing bad things, it shows that they don’t know Jesus at all. They don’t understand who Jesus really is.

7 My friends, that other mob are telling you lies. They reckon that people can keep on doing bad things, and that God will still say they are all right. But that’s not true. Don’t believe them. I’m telling you, God’s people have to live the right way, just like Jesus always lived the right way, and then God will say they are all right.

8 If anyone keeps on doing bad things, it shows that they belong to the devil. The devil is the boss over all the bad spirits. Everything he does is bad. Yes, he always did bad things, right from the time when God made everything. So if anyone keeps on doing bad things, it’s like they are one of the devil’s kids. The devil always gets people to go wrong, but you know, God’s son Jesus came to earth to stop the devil’s work for ever.

9 If anyone belongs to God, they don’t keep on doing bad things. It’s like they are one of God’s kids, and God gave them new life. So they can’t keep on doing bad things.

10 So this is how we can know which people belong to God, and which people belong to the devil. If somebody does not live the right way, then we know that they don’t belong to God. And if somebody does not love other Christians, then we know that they don’t belong to God either.

11 Yes, I’m telling you, we Christians have to love each other. You already know that message. You heard it from the beginning, right from the time you first heard about Jesus.[c]

12 Remember that old story in God’s book, about Cain and Abel. They were brothers. Cain belonged to the devil, and he did bad things. But Abel lived God’s way. So Cain hated Abel, and he killed him. But we can’t be like that. We can’t hate people or kill people.[d]

13 Listen, my friends. There are people in this world that are just like Cain. They hate people that live God’s way, so they will hate you too. Don’t be shocked about that. 14 But we are not like those people. You see, God gave us new life. It’s like our spirits used to be dead, but now they are alive. We know that we have new life because we love other Christians. That shows that our spirits are alive. But if anyone does not love other Christians, that shows that their spirit is still dead.[e]

15 You know, if you hate another Christian, God says that is really bad. He says it is just like you killed that other Christian. And we know that if you kill somebody, you do not have new life from God, and you can’t live with God for ever. So it’s the same if you hate another Christian, you do not have new life from God, and you can’t live with God for ever.

16 Do you want to know how to love people properly? Think about Jesus. He really loved us a lot. He loved us so much that he died to save us. In the same way, we have to be ready to do anything to help other Christians. Yes, we even have to be ready to die for them.

17 Think about this. Some of us Christians have food and money. Well, if we see another Christian that needs help, like maybe they don’t have enough food or clothes or something, then we have to feel sorry for them, and we have to help them. If we don’t do that, then we are not loving people in the way that God loves them.

18 My Christian friends, we can’t just say that we love people and then do nothing. No. We have to love people properly, and do things to help them.

19-20 If we love people properly, then we are living God’s way, and we will know for sure that we belong to God. And if we ever feel shame, and if we think maybe we don’t belong to God, we can remember that God knows everything, and he says that we belong to him. Then we will feel happy inside ourselves. We have to trust what God says, not the way we feel.

21 Yes, my friends, if we know that we belong to God, and we don’t feel shame, then we will not feel frightened to talk to him. 22 We know that we are doing the things that God tells us to do, and we are living in a way that makes him happy. So we can be sure that God will hear us when we pray, and he will give us whatever we ask for.

23 And this is what God tells us to do. We have to believe in God’s son Jesus Christ, and we have to love each other, just like he told us to do.[f] 24 If anyone does those things, they are joined up with God, and God is joined up with them. Yes, God put his spirit in us, so we know for sure that God is joined up with us.

<- 1 John 21 John 4 ->