2. Dear friends, now we are children of God. We have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him. We will see him just as he is.
3. He is pure, and everyone who has this hope in him keeps themselves pure like Christ.
4. Anyone who sins breaks God’s law. Yes, sinning is the same as living against God’s law.
5. You know that Christ came to take away people’s sins. There is no sin in Christ.
6. So whoever lives in Christ does not continue to sin. If they continue to sin, they have never really understood Christ and have never known him.
7. Dear children, don’t let anyone lead you into the wrong way. Christ always did what was right. So to be good like Christ, you must do what is right.
8. The devil has been sinning since the beginning. Anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this: to destroy the devil’s work.
9. Those who are God’s children do not continue to sin, because the new life God gave them stays in them. They cannot keep sinning, because they have become children of God.
19-20. That’s how we know we belong to the way of truth. And when our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God, because God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything.
21. My dear friends, if we don’t feel that we are doing wrong, we can be without fear when we come to God.
22. And God gives us what we ask for. We receive it because we obey God’s commands and do what pleases him.
23. This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ, and that we love each other as he commanded.
24. All who obey God’s commands live in God. And God lives in them. How do we know that God lives in us? We know because of the Spirit he gave us.