By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.

For this is the gospel message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another,

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth.

We love because he loved us first.

We know that we have crossed over from death to life because we love our fellow Christians. The one who does not love remains in death.

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

But now I ask you, lady (not as if I were writing a new commandment to you, but the one we have had from the beginning), that we love one another.

Now this is his commandment: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he gave us the commandment.

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