The Book of 1 John

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Life and Light

1. What was existing from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have perceived with our eyes, what we observed, and our hands felt concerning the Word of life.
2. And the life was revealed, and we have perceived, and testify, and report to you the life of ages which was existing with the Father and was revealed to us.
3. What we have perceived and we have heard, we also report to you so you might also have fellowship with us; and also our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus the Anointed.
4. And we write these things so our joy might be *made complete.
5. And this is the message that we have heard from Him and declare to you; that God is light, and in Him there is absolutely no¹“there is absolutely no” is more literally “not is none”, using a double negative to add emphasis.  Since English double negatives cancel each other out instead of adding emphasis, the word ‘absolutely’ was used to keep the emphatic sense of the Greek. darkness.
6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and don’t practice the truth.
7. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.
8. If we say that we don’t have sin, we mislead ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just so He might forgive us our sins and cleanse us from every unrighteousness.
10. If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make Him a liar and His word isn’t in us.

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If you know Him, keep His commandments

1. My little children, I write these things to you so that you might not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father; Jesus the Anointed, the Righteous One.
2. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
3. And by this we know that we *know Him: if we keep His commandments.
4. The man saying: “I *know Him” and not keeping His commandments is a liar and the truth isn’t in him.
5. But whoever keeps His word, truly the ^love of God has been perfected in him.  By this we know that we are in Him.
6. The man claiming to dwell in Him, that man is also obligated to walk in the same way as He walked.
7. Beloved, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning.  The old commandment is the word which you heard.
8. Then again, I write a new commandment to you which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness passes away and the true light already shines.
9. The man claiming to be in the light and yet hating his brother is in the darkness until now.
10. The man ^loving his brother remains in the light and there isn’t a stumbling block¹“stumbling block” is a single word in the Greek. It specifically refers to a “bait stick”, meaning the trigger stick of a trap or snare to which the bait is attached. Think of the part of a mouse trap to which you affix the cheese. On reaching for the bait, the “bait stick” triggers the trap and ensnares the unsuspecting victim.  It can also refer to offending someone, or to stumbling, or the means by which someone stumbles. in him.
11. But the man hating his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t *know where he is going because the darkness blinded his eyes.
12. Little children, I write to you because your sins have been forgiven through His name.
13. Fathers, I write to you because you *know Him who existed from the beginning.  Young men, I write to you because you have overcome the evil one.  Young children, I wrote to you because you *know the Father.
14. Fathers, I wrote to you because you *know Him who existed from the beginning. Young men, I wrote to you because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Don’t ^love the world

15. Don’t ^love the world nor the things in the world.  If anyone ^loves the world, the ^love of the Father isn’t in him,
16. because everything in the world – the craving of the flesh, and the craving of the eyes, and the arrogance of life – isn’t from the Father but is from the world.
17. And the world is passing away, and its cravings²“cravings” is literally “craving”, but the man doing the will of God remains through the age.
18. Young children, it’s the last hour.  And just as you heard that the anti-anointed is coming, and now many anti-anointeds have appeared, from which we know that it’s the last hour.
19. They went out from us, but they weren’t of us.  For if they were of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so it might be obvious that they aren’t all of us.
20. And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have known this.
21. I didn’t write to you because you haven’t known the truth, but because you have known it, and because every lie isn’t from the truth.
22. Who is the liar except the man denying, who says that Jesus isn’t the Anointed?  This is the anti-anointed; the man denying the Father and the Son.
23. Every man denying the Son doesn’t have the Father either.  The man confessing the Son also has the Father.

Remain in Him

24. What you heard from the beginning, let it remain in you.  If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.
25. And this is the promise that He Himself promised to us: the life of ages.
26. I wrote these things to you concerning the men leading you astray.
27. And you, the anointing that you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need that anyone might teach you.  But just as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and isn’t a lie; and just as it taught you, you remain in Him.
28. And now little children, remain in Him so we might have boldness when He is revealed and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
29. If you have known that He is righteous, you also know that every man doing righteousness has been born of Him.

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Children of God keep His commands

1. Behold what kind of ^love the Father has given to us, so we might be called children of God; and we are.  The world doesn’t know us because of this, because it didn’t know Him.
2. Beloved, we are now children of God, and it wasn’t yet revealed what we will be.  We *know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is.
3. And every man having this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
4. Every man practicing sin also practices disregard for God’s commands,¹“disregard for God’s commands” is one word in Greek, and is more literally “ignoring God’s law”.  It’s a noun, and literally means “those who are without law”; i.e. those who –  either by ignorance or by rebellion – don’t obey God’s (moral) law. and sin is disregard for God’s commands.
5. And you *know that He was revealed so He might take away sins; and there is no sin in Him.
6. Every man remaining in Him doesn’t continue in sin.  Every man continually sinning hasn’t seen Him and hasn’t known Him.
7. Little children, let no one mislead you; the man practicing righteousness is righteous just as He is righteous.
8. The man practicing sin is from the Accuser because the Accuser sins from the beginning.  The Son of God was revealed for this, so He might dissolve the works of the Accuser.
9. Every man who has been born of God doesn’t practice sin because His seed remains in him, and he isn’t able to sin because he has been born of God.
10. By this, the children of God and the children of the Accuser are obvious; every man not practicing righteousness isn’t of God, and neither is the man not ^loving his brother,
11. because this is the message that you heard from the beginning so we might ^love one another.
12. Not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother.  And for what reason did he slay him?  Because his works were evil but his brother’s were righteous.
13. And so brothers, don’t marvel if the world hates you.
14. We *know that we have passed over from death into life because we ^love our brothers.  The man not ^loving remains in death.
15. Every man hating his brother is a murderer, and you *know that every murderer doesn’t have the life of ages remaining in him.
16. By this we have known ^love, because He laid down His life for our sake.  And we’re obligated to lay down our lives for our brothers’ sake.
17. But whoever has a livelihood in the world, and sees his brother having a need, and shuts his heart from his brother, how does the ^love of God remain in him?
18. Little children, we shouldn’t ^love in word nor in tongue, but by action and truth.
19. And by this we will know that we are of the truth, and will reassure our heart before Him,
20. because if our heart condemns us, know that God is greater than our heart and He knows all things.
21. Beloved, if our heart doesn’t condemn us, we have confidence towards God.
22. And if²“if” many translations leave out the Greek conjunction “ἐὰν” (ean, which is roughly equivalent to the English word “if”) here due to the difficultly of translating the Greek grammar here to English  Literally in Greek it’s: “and whatever if we ask we receive from Him…”. we ask, we receive whatever we ask from Him because we keep His commandments and do pleasing things in His sight.
23. And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus the Anointed, and that we ^love one another, just as He gave the commandment to us.
24. And the man keeping His commandments remains in Him, and He in him.  And by this we know that He remains in us, from the Spirit whom He gave to us.

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Test spirits

1. Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus the Anointed has come in the flesh is from God.
3. And every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus [the Anointed has come in the flesh] isn’t from God, and this is the spirit of the anti-anointed, which you have heard that is coming, and now is already in the world.
4. You are from God little children.  And you have overcome them because the One in you is greater than the one in the world.
5. They are from the world.  Because of this, they speak from the world and the world hears them.
6. We are from God.  The man knowing God hears us.  He who isn’t from God doesn’t hear us.  From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

^Love

7. Beloved, we should ^love one another because ^love is from God, and every man who is ^loving has been born from God and knows God.
8. The man who is not ^loving didn’t know God because God is ^love.
9. The ^love of God was revealed among us by this, that God has sent His only unique¹“only unique” The Greek word here properly means “only one in its class” or “unique of its kind.”  Outside the Bible it has been used of the only legitimate heir of a monarch, as opposed to other children from concubines (slave wives in the Bible) who weren’t eligible to inherit. Son into the world so we might live through Him.
10. In this is ^love: not that we have ^loved God, but that He ^loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.
11. Beloved, if God ^loved us this way, we also are obligated to ^love one another.
12. No one has ever seen God.  If we ^love one another, God remains in us and His ^love is *perfected in us.
13. By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us from His Spirit.
14. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world.
15. Whoever confesses that Jesus [the Anointed] is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.
16. And we have known and have believed the ^love which God has in us.  God is ^love, and the man remaining in ^love remains in God and God remains in him.
17. By this ^love has been perfected with us, so we might have confidence in the day of judgement, because just as He is, we are also in this world.
18. There isn’t fear in ^love, but perfect ^love casts out fear because fear has punishment.  And the man fearing hasn’t been perfected in ^love.
19. We ^love because He first ^loved us.
20. If someone says: “I ^love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar.  For the man not ^loving his brother whom he has seen isn’t able to ^love God whom he hasn’t seen.
21. And this is the commandment we have from Him, that the man ^loving God should also ^love his brother.

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Belief, Obedience, and Testimony

1. Every man believing that Jesus is the Anointed has been born from God.  And every man ^loving the One who fathered Him also ^loves the man who has been born from Him.
2. By this we know that we ^love the children of God, when we ^love God and keep His commandments.
3. For this is the ^love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments aren’t burdensome,
4. because everything *born from God overcomes the world.  And this is the victory which overcame the world: our faith.
5. And who is the man overcoming the world except the man believing that Jesus is the Son of God?
6. This is the One who came through water and blood, Jesus the Anointed; not by water only, but by the water and by the blood.  And the Spirit is the One testifying because the Spirit is the truth.
7. For there are three testifying [in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.
8. And there are three testifying on earth:]¹This textual variant commonly called the “Johannine Comma”, which is one of the most significant textual variants in scripture. It’s absent from nearly all Greek manuscripts, but present in nearly all Latin ones. It was cited as scripture in the early 200s by Cyprian, and possibly earlier by Tertullian, though the latter’s allusion is more vague.  Jerome (347-420 AD) specifically mentions this as a passage which was removed by “unfaithful translators” (likely a reference to the Arians, who control much of the Greek-speaking church for a time).  There is a strong grammatical argument for its inclusion as well, as omitting it causes a major grammatical error that even children likely wouldn’t make, much less a brilliant author like John. Gregory of Nazanzius (329-390 AD) made this same grammatical argument.  However, the modern scholarly consensus is that this wasn’t original to John based on the paucity of Greek manuscripts which contain it.  The debate is ongoing. the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are in one accord.
9. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God that He has testified concerning His Son.
10. The man believing in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.  The man not believing God has made Him a liar because he hasn’t believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning His Son.
11. And the testimony is this: that God gave the life of ages to us, and this life is in His Son.
12. The man having the Son has the life.  The man not having the Son of God doesn’t have the life.
13. I wrote these things to you – the men believing in the name of the Son of God – so you might *know that you have the life of ages [and so you might believe in the name of the Son of God].
14. And this is the confidence that we have towards Him, that if we ask something according to His will, He hears us.
15. And if we *know that He hears us if²“if” many translations leave out the Greek conjunction “ἐὰν” (ean, which is roughly equivalent to the English word “if”) here due to the difficultly of translating the Greek grammar here into English  Literally in Greek it is: “And if we have known that He hears us whatever if we might ask…”. we ask whatever we ask, then we *know that we have the requests that we have asked from Him.

Final Instruction

16. If someone sees his brother sinning a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he shall ask and He will give life to him, to the men sinning a sin not leading to death.  There is sin that leads to death; I don’t say that he should ask concerning that sin.
17. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that doesn’t lead to death.
18. We *know that every man who has been born from God doesn’t continually sin, but the One who was born from God keeps him, and the evil one doesn’t touch him.
19. We *know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the evil one’s power.
20. And we *know that the Son of God is present and has given us understanding so we might know Him who is true, and we are in the true One, in His Son Jesus the Anointed.  He is the true God and the life of ages.
21. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.  [Amen]

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