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

not like Cain who was of the evil one and brutally murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, but his brother’s were righteous.

Now this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.

And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life –

and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us).

Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have already heard.

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

(The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.)