1 Everyone who believes that Yeshua is the Messiah has God as his father, and everyone who loves a father loves his offspring too.
2 Here is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God, we also do what he commands.
3 For loving God means obeying his commands. Moreover, his commands are not burdensome,
4 because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our trust.
5 Who does overcome the world if not the person who believes that Yeshua is the Son of God?
6 He is the one who came by means of water and blood, Yeshua the Messiah — not with water only, but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.
7 There are three witnesses —
8 the Spirit, the water and the blood — and these three are in agreement.
9 If we accept human witness, God’s witness is stronger, because it is the witness which God has given about his Son.
10 Those who keep trusting in the Son of God have this witness in them. Those who do not keep trusting God have made him out to be a liar, because they have not trusted in the witness which God has given about his Son.
11 And this is the witness: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 Those who have the Son have the life; those who do not have the Son of God do not have the life.
13 I have written you these things so that you may know that you have eternal life — you who keep trusting in the person and power of the Son of God.
14 This is the confidence we have in his presence: if we ask anything that accords with his will, he hears us.
15 And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — then we know that we have what we have asked from him.
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he will ask; and God will give him life for those whose sinning does not lead to death. There is sin that does lead to death; I am not saying he should pray about that.
17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
18 We know that everyone who has God as his Father does not go on sinning; on the contrary, the Son born of God protects him, and the Evil One does not touch him.
19 We know that we are from God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One.
20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment, so that we may know who is genuine; moreover, we are united with the One who is genuine, united with his Son Yeshua the Messiah. He is the genuine God and eternal life.
21 Children, guard yourselves against false gods!