2. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and 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, because we will see him as he really is.
3. Christ is pure, and all who have this hope in Christ keep themselves pure like Christ.
4. The person who sins breaks God’s law. Yes, sin is living against God’s law.
5. You know that Christ came to take away sins and that there is no sin in Christ.
6. So anyone who lives in Christ does not go on sinning. Anyone who goes on sinning has never really understood Christ and has never known him.
7. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you the wrong way. Christ is righteous. So to be like Christ a person must do what is right.
8. The devil has been sinning since the beginning, so anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s work.
9. Those who are God’s children do not continue sinning, because the new life from God remains in them. They are not able to go on sinning, because they have become children of God.
19-20. This is the way we know that we belong to the way of truth. When our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God. God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21. My dear friends, if our hearts do not make us feel guilty, we can come without fear into God’s presence.
22. And God gives us what we ask for 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, just as he commanded.
24. The people who obey God’s commands live in God, and God lives in them. We know that God lives in us because of the Spirit God gave us.