1 John 4:7-21

Goodspeed(i) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God's love for us has been revealed in this way—that God has sent his only Son into the world, to let us have life through him. 10 The love consists not in our having loved God, but in his loving us and sending his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God has loved us so, we ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; yet if we love one another, God keeps in union with us and love for him attains perfection in our hearts. 13 This is the way we know that we keep in union with him and he does with us—because he has given us some of his Spirit. 14 We have seen and can testify that the Father has sent the Son to be Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God keeps in union with him and he with God. 16 So we know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love keeps in union with God, and God with him. 17 Love attains perfection in us, when we have perfect confidence about the Day of Judgment, because here in this world we are living as he lives. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. For fear suggests punishment and no one who feels fear has attained perfect love. 19 We love because he loved us first. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," and yet hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 This is the command that we get from him, that whoever loves God must love his brother also.