1Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2Hereby you{+} know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God: 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not of God: and this is the [spirit] of the antichrist, of which you{+} have heard that it comes; and now it is in the world already. 4You{+} are of God, [my] little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he who is in you{+} than he who is in the world. 5They are of the world: therefore they speak [as] of the world, and the world hears them. 6We are of God: he who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone who loves is begotten of God, and knows God. 8He who doesn't love doesn't know God; for God is love. 9In this was the love of God manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No man has seen God at any time: if we love one another, God stays in us, and his love is perfected in us: 13hereby we know that we stay in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [to be] the Savior of the world. 15Whoever will confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God stays in him, and he in God. 16And we know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love; and he who stays in love stays in God, and God stays in him. 17In this love has been made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love: but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment; and he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19We love, because he first loved us. 20If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen, can't love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God love his brother also.