- 4:1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
- 4:2In this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
- 4:3And every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming and now is already in the world.
- 4:4You are of God, little children; and you have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
- 4:5They are of the world; therefore they speak out of the world, and the world hears them.
- 4:6We are of God; he who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
- 4:7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and everyone who loves has been begotten of God and knows God.
- 4:8He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.
- 4:9In this the love of God was manifested among us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might have life and live through Him.
- 4:10Herein is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.
- 4:11Beloved, if God has loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
- 4:12No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
- 4:13In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit.
- 4:14And we have beheld and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.
- 4:15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.
- 4:16And we know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.
- 4:17In this has love been perfected with us, that we have boldness in the day of the judgment because even as He is, so also are we in this world.
- 4:18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has punishment, and he who fears has not been perfected in love.
- 4:19We love because He first loved us.
- 4:20If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
- 4:21And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God love his brother also.