1 John 3:1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 16, 18

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.