Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech: 1 John | Page 3

we can distinguish God's children and the Devil's children: no one who fails to act righteously is a child of God, nor he who does not love his brother man. 003:011 For this is the Message you have heard from the beginning-- that we are to love one another. 003:012 We are not to resemble Cain, who was a child of the Evil one and killed his own brother. And why did he kill him? Because his own actions were wicked and his brother's actions righteous. 003:013 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. 003:014 As for us, we know that we have already passed out of death into Life--because we love our brother men. He who is destitute of love continues dead. 003:015 Every one who hates his brother man is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has the Life of the Ages continuing in him. 003:016 We know what love is--through Christ's having laid down His life on our behalf; and in the same way we ought to lay down our lives for our brother men. 003:017 But if any one has this world's wealth and sees that his brother man is in need, and yet hardens his heart against him-- how can such a one continue to love God? 003:018 Dear children, let us not love in words only nor with the lips, but in deed and in truth. 003:019 And in this way we shall come to know that we are loyal to the truth, and shall satisfy our consciences in His presence 003:020 in whatever matters our hearts condemn us--because God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. 003:021 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have perfect confidence towards God; 003:022 and whatever we ask for we obtain from Him, because we obey His commands and do the things which are pleasing in His sight. 003:023 And this is His command--that we are to believe in His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us to do. 003:024 The man who obeys His commands continues in union with God, and God continues in union with him; and through His Spirit whom He has given us we can know that He continues in union with us. 004:001 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but put the spirits to the test to see whether they are from God; for many false teachers have gone out into the world. 004:002 The test by which you may recognize the Spirit of God is that every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come as man is from God, 004:003 and that no spirit is from God which does not acknowledge this about Jesus. Such is the spirit of the anti-Christ; of whose coming you have heard, and it is already in the world. 004:004 As for you, dear children, you are God's children, and have successfully resisted them; for greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 004:005 They are the world's children, and so their language is that of the world, and the world listens to them. We are God's children. 004:006 The man who is beginning to know God listens to us, but he who is not a child of God does not listen to us. By this test we can distinguish the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error. 004:007 Dear friends, let us love one another; for love has its origin in God, and every one who loves has become a child of God and is beginning to know God. 004:008 He who is destitute of love has never had any knowledge of God; because God is love. 004:009 God's love for us has been manifested in that He has sent His only Son into the world so that we may have Life through Him. 004:010 This is love indeed--we did not love God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 004:011 Dear friends, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 004:012 No one has ever yet seen God. If we love one another, God continues in union with us, and His love in all its perfection is in our hearts. 004:013 We can know that we are continuing in union with Him and that He is continuing in union with us, by the fact that He has given us a portion of His Spirit. 004:014 And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 004:015 Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God--God continues in union with him, and he continues in union