Montgomery - I John

Chapter 1

1:1  It is of what has existed from the beginning, of what we have listened to, of what we have seen with our own eyes, of what we have witnessed and touched with our own heads, it is concerning the Logos of Life that we are now writing.

1:2  And the Life was made visible, and we have seen it and are bearing witness, and are bringing you word of that Eternal Life which was face to face with the Father and was made visible to us.

1:3  It is what we have seen and heard that we are announcing to you, in order that you also may have partnership with us; and our partnership is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

1:4  And we are writing all this to you that our joy may be complete.

1:5  This, then, is the message that we have heard from him, and are announcing to you, that God is light, and no darkness what ever is in him.

1:6  If we say, "We have partnership with Him," when we are passing our life in the darkness, we are lying and are not doing the truth.

1:7  But is we are passing our life in the light, as he is in the light, we ever have partnership with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ is cleansing us from every sin.

1:8  If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1:9  But if we confess our sins, faithful is he and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all wrong-doing.

1:10  If we say, "We have not sinned," we are making him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Chapter 2

2:1  My children, I am writing this to you that you may not continue to sin; but if any one sin, we ever have a Comforter before the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.

2:2  And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

2:3  This is how we may know that we have come to know Him, by always keeping his commandments.

2:4  He who says, "I know Him," but does no continue obeying his commandments, is a liar,

2:5  and the truth is not in him; bit if any man obey his word, in him truly is the love of God made perfect. By this we come to know that we are in him.

2:6  By who says he "remains in him" ought to spend his life as he spent his.

2:7  Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, nay, and old commandment, which you have had from the beginning. That old commandment is the message to which you have listened.

2:8  Yet again it is a new commandment which I am writing to you, which is true in him and is you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

2:9  He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now.

2:10  But he who loves his brother is abiding in the light, and in it there is no cause of stumbling.

2:11  But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and is spending his life in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

2:12  I am writing to you, little children, because you sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.

2:13  I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have fully overcome the Evil One. I have written to you, little children, because you have learned to know the father.

2:14  I have written to you, fathers, because you have learned to know him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God is abiding in you, and you have fully overcome the Evil One.

2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the proud glory of life, is not from the Father, but from the world;

2:17  and the world and its lusts are passing away, but he who ever does the will of God abides forever.

2:18  My children, this is the last hour, and as you have heard that an antichrist was coming, and now many antichrists are already risen, whence we may know that it is the last hour.

2:19  They came forth from us, but they did not belong to us. If they had belonged to us they would certainly have remained with us, but they went out that they might be manifest that they all are not of us.

2:20  Now you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.

2:21  I am not writing to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and know that no lie is of the truth.

2:22  Who is the liar if not the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, even he who disowns the Father and the Son.

2:23  Whoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father; but he who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you.

2:24  If what you have heard from the beginning is abiding in you, you also will ever abide in the Son and in the Father.

2:25  And this is the promise which he has promised to us even life eternal.

2:26  I have written this to you concerning those who would lead you astray.

2:27  As to you, the unction you received from him remains ever in you, and you need no teaching from any one. But since his unction teaches you concerning all things and is true, and is no lie, abide continually in him, as it has taught you to do.

2:28  And now continue to abide in him, my children, so that when he shall appear we may have cheerful confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

2:29  If you know that he is righteous you know also that every one who habitually practises righteousness has been born of him.

Chapter 3

3:1  Behold what manner of love the Father has given us in allowing us to be called "Children of God!" And that is what we are. For this reason the world does not recognize us, because it did not know him.

3:2  We are God’s children now, beloved; what we shall be has never yet been made manifest. But we know that when he is manifested we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is.

3:3  And every one who is holding this hope in him is purifying himself, even as he is pure.

3:4  Every one who commits sin commits also lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.

3:5  And you know that he was manifested to take away sins; and in him is no sin.

3:6  Whoever continually abides in him does not habitually sin; whoever lives in sin has not seen him, nor come to know him.

3:7  My children, let no one deceive you; he who is working righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous.

3:8  He who is committing sin is of the devil, because from the beginning of the devil is sinning. It was for this cause that the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

3:9  Whoever is a child of God cannot go on sinning, because his seed is abiding in him; and he cannot go on sinning because he is a child of God.

3:10  In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; for every one who does not work righteousness is not a child of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

3:11  For this is the message that you have listened to from the beginning, "WE ARE TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER."

3:12  We are not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One, and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? It was because his own deeds were evil, and his brother’s, righteous.

3:13  Do not wonder, brothers, if the world continues to hate you.

3:14  We know that we have migrated, out of death into life, because we love our brothers. He who has no love is abiding in death.

3:15  Every one who is hating his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

3:16  By this we learn to know love, because he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

3:17  But whoever has this world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need, and shuts up his heart against him, how can the love of God continue to abide in him?

3:18  My children, let us not love in word nor in talk, but in deed and in truth.

3:19  By this we shall come to know that we are really of the truth,

3:20  and shall persuade our heart in his presence whenever our heart condemns us, because God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

3:21  Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have confidence toward God,

3:22  and whatever we ask we are receiving from him, because we are keeping his commandments and doing those things that are pleasing in his sight.

3:23  His commandment is this, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he has commanded us to do.

3:24  He who keeps his commandments is abiding in Him, and Christ in him. By this we know that Christ is abiding in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.

Chapter 4

4:1  Do not believe every spirit, beloved, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets are gone out into the world.

4:2  By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is from God;

4:3  and every spirit which confesses him not, is not from God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming, and that now it is already in the world.

4:4  My little children, you are of God and have conquered them; because he that is within you is greater than he that is in the world.

4:5  They are of the world, and for this reason they speak as of the world, and the world listens to them.

4:6  But you are of God. He who is beginning to know God listens to us; he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we may distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.

4:7  Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loves us a child of God.

4:8  He who does not love, does not know God; for God is love.

4:9  In this was the love of God clearly shown toward us, by his sending his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

4:10  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.

4:11  If God so loved us, beloved, we also ought to love one another.

4:12  No man has ever gazed on God; but if we love one another, God ever abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

4:13  By this we come to know that we are abiding in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit;

4:14  and we have beheld and do testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

4:15  If any man confesses that "Jesus is the Son of God." God is abiding in that man, and he in God.

4:16  And we do know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love; and he who is abiding in love is abiding in God, and God is abiding in him.

4:17  In this is love made perfect with us, so that we may have cheerful confidence in the Day of Judgment, because we are living in this world as He lives.

4:18  Fear does not exist in love; but love, when it is perfect, drives out fear. For fear has always torment, and he who has fear is not yet perfected in love.

4:19  We love because He loved us first.

4:20  If any one says, "I love God," and yet hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot possibly love God, whom he has not seen.

4:21  And we have this command from God. HE WHO LOVES GOD IS TO LOVE HIS BROTHER ALSO.

Chapter 5

5:1  Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God; and every one who loves the Father, loves him also who is the Father’s Child.

5:2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

5:3  For love to God means obeying his commandments; and his commandments are not irksome.

5:4  For whoever is a child of God is overcoming the world; and our faith is the victory that has overcome the world.

5:5  And who it the one that is overcoming the world if not the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

5:6  Jesus Christ is he who came by water and blood, not by the water only, but by the water and by the blood. The spirit is he who bears testimony, because the Spirit is the truth.

5:7  For there are three who bear testimony, the Spirit, and the water,

5:8  and the blood; and the three are one.

5:9  If we accept men’s testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God, that he has borne testimony concerning his Son.

5:10  He who believes on the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God, has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.

5:11  And the testimony is this, "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

5:12  He who has the Son has the life; he who has not the Son of God has not the life.

5:13  I have written these words to you so that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

5:14  Now the confidence which we have in him is this, that he listens to us whenever we ask anything that is in accordance with his will.

5:15  And if we know that he is listening to us in what ever we are asking, we know that we obtain the petitions which we have made to him.

5:16  If any one sees his brother committing a sin that is not deadly, he shall ask, and God will give him life, for any one who is not committing a deadly sin. There is a deadly sin; concerning that I do not say that he should pray.

5:17  All unrighteousness is sin; and there is sin that is not deadly.

5:18  We know that whoever is a child of God is not habitually committing sin; but he who is God’s child guards himself, and the Evil One never touches him.

5:19  We know that we are of God, and the whole world is lying in the Evil One.

5:20  And we know that the Son of God is come, and has granted us and understanding, so that we may come to know him who is true. And we are in him who is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and life eternal.

5:21  My little children, guard yourselves from idols.