BWE - I John

Chapter 1

1:1  The Word of life always was living, even from the beginning. We heard him. We saw him with our own eyes. We looked at him, and we touched him with our own hands. We are writing to you about this Word of life.

1:2  This life came to earth. We saw him, and we know about him. And we tell you about this life that lives for ever. This life was with the Father and came to us.

1:3  We tell you also what we have seen and heard. We tell you so that you also will belong with us. And we belong with the Father and the Son.

1:4  We write these things to you so that we all will be very happy.

1:5  God is like light and he is not dark at all. That is the message we heard from him. That is the message we are telling you.

1:6  Do we say that we belong with him? And at the same time, do we live in the dark? Then what we say is not true, and what we do is not right.

1:7  Do we live in the light, as God is in the light? Then we belong with others who belong to him. And the blood of the death of Jesus Christ makes us clean from all the wrong things we have done.

1:8  Do we say, ‘We have no wrong ways’? Then we are fooling ourselves, and we do not know what is true.

1:9  Let us tell God about our wrong ways. God can be trusted. He does what is right. He will forgive us for the wrong things we have done. He will make us clean from all that was wrong.

1:10  Do we say, ‘We have not done anything wrong’? This is like saying that God is not true. That means we do not accept God’s word.

Chapter 2

2:1  My children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not do wrong things. But if anyone does something wrong, we have a Friend to help us. He speaks to God for us. He is Jesus Christ who does what is right.

2:2  He himself is the sacrifice God offered to pay for the wrong we have done. And he pays for the wrong things all people in all the world have done.

2:3  We can be sure that we know him when we obey his laws.

2:4  If any man says, ‘I know him’ and does not obey his laws, he is telling a lie. He does not know what is true.

2:5  But if any man obeys his word, he really loves God. Here is the way that we may be sure that we belong to him.

2:6  If any man says he belongs to him, he must live in the same way Christ lived.

2:7  My dear brothers, I am not writing you a new law. This is an old law. You had it from the beginning. The old law is the word which you have heard.

2:8  But in a way, I am writing you a new law. The darkness is going away and the true light is shining already.

2:9  Does anyone say he is in the light, and hates his brother? Then he is still in the dark.

2:10  The man who loves his brother lives in the light. There is nothing in him to make him do wrong.

2:11  But the man who hates his brother is in the dark. He lives in the dark. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind.

2:12  Children, I am writing to you because God has forgiven the wrong things you have done. Your wrong ways have been forgiven because of what Christ did.

2:13  Fathers, I am writing to you because you know the One who has lived from the beginning. Young men, I am writing to you because you have won the victory over the devil. Children, I write to you because you know Father God.

2:14  Fathers, I write to you because you know him, the one who has lived from the beginning. Young men, I write to you because you are strong. You believe God’s word. You have won the victory over the devil.

2:15  Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, he does not love the Father.

2:16  Nothing in the world comes from the Father. I mean the wrong things people like to do with their bodies. I mean the things people see and want to have. I mean all the things people are proud of in this life. These things come from the world, not the Father.

2:17  And the world will go away and all the things in it that people like to do. But the person who does what God wants him to do will live for ever.

2:18  Children, we are very near the end of time. You have heard that someone will come who is against Christ. Many who are against Christ have already come. That is how we know that we are very near the end of time.

2:19  They left us, but they did not belong with us. If they had belonged with us, they would have stayed with us. But they left us so that people could see that all of them did not belong with us.

2:20  But the Holy One has given you a gift of understanding so that you all may know what is true.

2:21  I write to you, not because you do not know what is true, but because you do know. And you know that no lie is true.

2:22  Who then is the one who says what is not true? It is the one who says that Jesus is not the Christ. That person is against Christ, because he says there is no Father and there is no Son.

2:23  Everyone who says Jesus is not the Son does not know the Father. And everyone who says Jesus is the Son knows the Father.

2:24  So keep what you have heard from the beginning. If you keep what you have heard from the beginning, you too belong to the Son and to the Father.

2:25  And he himself has promised us that we will live for ever.

2:26  I have written these things to you about the ones who try to fool you.

2:27  You have a gift of understanding from Christ. That gift stays with you. You do not need anyone to teach you. His gift teaches you about everything. It is true. It is not a lie. So stay with him as he has taught you.

2:28  Now, my children, stay with Christ. Then we will not be afraid on that day when we see him again. We will not be ashamed to stand before him when he comes again.

2:29  You know that he does what is right. So you know also that everyone who does what is right is his child.

Chapter 3

3:1  See how much the Father has loved us! We are called God’s children. It is true, we are God’s children. People in this world did not know him and so they do not know us.

3:2  My dear brothers, we are God’s children now. No one knows yet what we shall be like. But we know that when Jesus comes, we will be like him. We will see him as he really is.

3:3  Everyone who has this hope about Christ makes his life holy. He makes his life holy and clean, just as Christ is holy.

3:4  Everyone who does wrong things is breaking God’s law. Doing wrong things is breaking the law.

3:5  You know that Christ came to take away the wrong things people have done. He is the one who has done no wrong.

3:6  Everyone who stays with him does not do wrong things. Everyone who does wrong things has never seen him and has never known him.

3:7  My children, do not let anyone fool you. Anyone who does what is good, is good just as Christ is good.

3:8  Anyone who does what is wrong belongs to the devil. The devil has done what is wrong from the beginning. That is why God’s Son came. He came to stop what the devil does.

3:9  No one who is God’s child does wrong things, because God’s life is in him. And he cannot keep on doing wrong things, because he is God’s child.

3:10  This is how people can know who are God’s children and who are the devil’s children. Everyone who does not do right is not God’s child. And anyone who does not love his brother is not God’s child.

3:11  This is the word you have heard from the beginning. ‘We must love one another.’

3:12  We must not be like Cain. He was a child of the devil and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? He killed him because the things he himself did were wrong, and the things his brother did were right with God.

3:13  My brothers, do not be surprised if people in this world hate you.

3:14  We know that we have gone from death to life. We know this because we love the Christian brothers. Anyone who does not love them has not gone from death to life.

3:15  Everyone who hates his brother is like a man who kills a person. And you know that no one who kills a person has life that will live for ever.

3:16  Christ died for us. That is how we know what love is. We also should be willing to die for our brothers.

3:17  Perhaps a man has plenty of food and things. He sees that his brother needs some. If he does not want to help his brother, does he love God?

3:18  My children, we must not only talk about loving people; we must show we love people by what we do for them. We must really love them.

3:19  And this is how we will know that we are true. This is why we will not be afraid in front of God.

3:20  Even if our hearts think we are wrong, God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.

3:21  My dear brothers, if our hearts do not think we are wrong, we will not be afraid in front of God.

3:22  If we ask God for something, we get it. We get it because we obey his laws. We get it because we do what pleases him.

3:23  This is his law. We must believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. And we must love one another as he told us to do.

3:24  If anyone obeys his laws, he belongs to God and God belongs to him. God has given us the Holy Spirit. That is how we know that God is with us.

Chapter 4

4:1  My dear brothers, do not trust every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they belong to God. There are many prophets who are not true who have gone out into the world.

4:2  Here is how you can know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that believes that Jesus Christ has come in the body of a man is from God.

4:3  And every spirit that does not say this about Jesus, does not belong to God. That is the spirit of the one who is against Christ. You have heard that he is coming. And now he is already in the world.

4:4  My children, you belong to God. You have won the victory over those prophets who are not true. You have won because the Spirit that is in you is stronger than the spirit that is in the world.

4:5  Those prophets belong to the world. That is why they teach about things in the world. And that is why the people of the world listen to them.

4:6  But we belong to God. Anyone who knows God listens to us. Anyone who does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we know if a spirit is true or not true.

4:7  My dear brothers, we must love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves others is God’s child and he knows God.

4:8  But anyone who does not love others does not know God, because God is love.

4:9  This is how God showed his love for us. He sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

4:10  This is love! We did not love God, but he loved us. And he sent his Son to be the sacrifice to pay for the wrong things we have done.

4:11  My dear brothers, if God loved us so much, we must love one another also.

4:12  No man has ever seen God. But God lives in us if we love one another. And in loving one another, his love is made perfect.

4:13  He has given us of his own Spirit. That is how we know that we are in him and he is in us.

4:14  And we have seen and we are telling you that the Father sent his Son to save the people in the world.

4:15  If anyone says, ‘Jesus is the Son of God,’ God is in him and he is in God.

4:16  We know and we believe that God loves us. God is love. And anyone who loves others is in God and God is in him.

4:17  That is why we love each other very much. Then we will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. We are like Christ in this world.

4:18  Where God’s love is, there is no fear. God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. Anyone who has fear does not have perfect love.

4:19  We love others because God first loved us.

4:20  If anyone says, ‘I love God’, and he hates his brother, he is telling a lie. If he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

4:21  God gave us this law. The person who loves God must love his brother also.

Chapter 5

5:1  Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is God’s child. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child.

5:2  This is how we know we love God’s children. We love God and we obey his laws.

5:3  We show that we love God when we obey his laws. His laws are not hard to obey.

5:4  Everyone who is God’s child wins a victory over the world. We win because we believe God.

5:5  Who wins a victory over the world? It is only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

5:6  There was water and there was blood when Jesus Christ came. There was not water only, but there was water and there was blood. The Spirit proves this is true, because the Spirit is true.

5:7  There are three in heaven who prove it is true. They are the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. These three are one.

5:8  There are three on earth who prove it is true. They are the spirit, the water, and the blood. These three all prove the same thing.

5:9  We believe what people prove to us. But when God proves something it is stronger than what people prove. This is what God proved about his Son.

5:10  Anyone who believes in God’s Son believes what God says about him. Anyone who does not believe God shows that he thinks what God says is not true. He has not believed what God says about his Son.

5:11  Here is what God says. He has given us life that will last for ever. And this life is in his Son.

5:12  So anyone who has the Son has this life. Anyone who does not have the Son of God does not have this life.

5:13  I have written these things to you who believe on the name of the Son of God. I have written them so that you will know that you will live for ever.

5:14  And we are sure God will do this. If we ask him for anything that he wants us to have, he will listen to us.

5:15  And if we know he listens to us when we ask for anything, then we know that we have what we asked him for.

5:16  Maybe a man sees his brother do something wrong, but not so bad that he must die for it. The man should ask God and God will let his brother live. God will let people live if the things they have done are not so bad that they must die for them. But there are things so wrong that a person must die for them. If he has done such as that, I do not tell the man to ask God to let him live.

5:17  Everything that is wrong is a bad thing. But not every bad thing is so wrong that a person must die for it.

5:18  We know that any child of God does not do wrong things. The Son of God keeps him safe and the devil cannot touch him.

5:19  We know that we belong to God and the whole world belongs to the devil.

5:20  We know that the Son of God has come. He has given us a heart to know him who is true. We belong to him who is true, because we belong to his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God. He has the life that will live for ever.

5:21  My children, have nothing to do with false gods or idols.