1 John 4

¹Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, if they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

²Hereby ye know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God;

³and every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God: and this is that [power] of the antichrist, [of] which ye have heard that it comes, and now it is already in the world.

⁴Ye are of God, children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that [is] in you than he that [is] in the world.

⁵They are of the world; for this reason they speak [as] of the world, and the world hears them.

⁶We are of God; he that 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 error.

⁷Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God.

⁸He that loves not has not known God; for God is love.

⁹Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

¹⁰Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins.

¹¹Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

¹²No one has seen God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.