1 John 4:6-16

6 We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

Knowing God through Love

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 God's love was revealed among us in this way:^[a] God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the^[b] propitiation^[c] for our sins.

11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God.^[d] If we love one another, God remains in^[e] us and His love is perfected in us.

13 This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given to us from His Spirit.

14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.

15 Whoever confesses^[f] that Jesus is the Son of God-God remains in him and he in God.

16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.