1. My dear children, I write this letter to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone sins, we have Jesus Christ to help us. He always did what was right, so he is able to defend us before God the Father.
2. Jesus is the way our sins are taken away. And he is the way all people can have their sins taken away too.
3. If we obey what God has told us to do, then we are sure that we know him.
4. If we say we know God but do not obey his commands, we are lying. The truth is not in us.
5. But when we obey God’s teaching, his love is truly working in us. This is how we know that we are living in him.
6. If we say we live in God, we must live the way Jesus lived.
7. My dear friends, I am not writing a new command to you. It is the same command you have had since the beginning. This command is the teaching you have already heard.
8. But what I write is also a new command. It is a true one; you can see its truth in Jesus and in yourselves. The darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.
9. Someone might say, “I am in the light,” but if they hate any of their brothers or sisters in God’s family, they are still in the darkness.
10. Those who love their brothers and sisters live in the light, and there is nothing in them that will make them do wrong.
11. But whoever hates their brother or sister is in darkness. They live in darkness. They don’t know where they are going, because the darkness has made them blind.