1My children, in writing thus to you my purpose is that you should not commit sin. But should anyone commit a sin, we have one to plead our cause with the Father, Jesus Christ, and he is just. 2He is himself the remedy for the defilement of our sins, not our sins only but the sins of all the world.
3Here is the test by which we can make sure that we know him: do we keep his commands? 4The man who says, 'I know him', while he disobeys his commands, is a liar and a stranger to the truth; 5but in the man who is obedient to his word, the divine love has indeed come to its perfection.
Here is the test by which we can make sure that we are in him: 6whoever claims to be dwelling in him, binds himself to live as Christ himself lived.
7Dear friends, I give you no new command. It is the old command which you always had before you; the old command is the message which you heard at the beginning. 8And yet again it is a new command that I am giving you—new in the sense that the darkness is passing and the real light already shines. Christ has made this true, and it is true in your own experience.
9A man may say, 'I am in the light'; but if he hates his brother, he is still in the dark. 10Only the man who loves his brother dwells in light: there is nothing to make him stumble. 11But one who hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in the dark and has no idea where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind.
12I write to you, my children, because your sins have been forgiven for his sake.
13I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is and has been from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you have mastered the evil one.
To you, children, I have written because you know the Father.
14To you, fathers, I have written because you know him who is and has been from the beginning.
To you, young men, I have written because you are strong; God's word is in you, and you have mastered the evil one.
15Do not set your hearts on the godless world or anything in it. Anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father's love. 16Everything the world affords, all that panders to the appetites, or entices the eyes, all the glamour of its life, springs not from the Father but from the godless world. 17And that world is passing away with all its allurements, but he who does God's will stands for evermore.
18MY CHILDREN, this is the last hour! You were is told that Antichrist was to come, and now many antichrists have appeared; which proves to us that this is indeed the last hour. 19They went out from our company, but never really belonged to us; if they had, they would have stayed with us. They went out, so that it might be clear that not all in our company truly belong to it.
20You, no less than they, are among the initiated; this is the gift of the Holy One, and by it you all have knowledge. 21It is not because you are ignorant of the truth that I have written to you, but because you know it, and because lies, one and all, are alien to the truth.
22Who is the liar? Who but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, for he denies both the Father and the Son: 23to deny the Son is to be without the Father; to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father too. 24You therefore must keep in your hearts that which you heard at the beginning; if what you heard then still dwells in you, you will yourselves dwell in the Son and also in the Father. 25And this is the promise that he himself gave us, the promise of eternal life.
26So much for those who would mislead you. 27But as for you, the initiation which you received from him stays with you; you need no other teacher, but learn all you need to know from his initiation, which is real and no illusion. As he taught you, then, dwell in him.
28Even now, my children, dwell in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 29If you know that he is righteous, you must recognize that every man who does right is his child.
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