1 John 5

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been fathered by God, and everyone who loves the one who fathered also loves the one fathered by him. ²By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and do his commandments. ³For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴because everything fathered by God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. ⁵Who is the one who overcomes the world if not the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

⁶This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ—not in water alone, but in water and in blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷For there are three who testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. ⁸And there are three who testify on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three agree. ⁹If we receive human testimony, God's testimony is greater, because this is God's testimony: he has testified about his Son. ¹⁰The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony within himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²The one who has the Son has life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

¹³I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴And this is the confidence we have before him: if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests we have asked of him. ¹⁶If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin that does not lead to death, he should ask, and God will give him life—to those sinning a sin that does not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I am not saying that he should ask about that. ¹⁷All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

¹⁸We know that everyone who has been fathered by God does not sin, but the one who was fathered by God guards him, and the evil one does not take hold of him. ¹⁹We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the evil one's power. ²⁰And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the one who is true. And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. ²¹Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

Translation notes 7

5:1–5 — Fatherhood, love, and victory. “The one fathered by him” in verse 1 naturally includes God's children, as verse 2 explains. Verse 4 has a neuter expression, “everything fathered by God,” followed by the personal wording of verse 5; the unusual shift is retained. “Overcome” and “victory” are related Greek words. Verse 2 says “do” the commandments, while verse 3 says “keep” them.

5:6 — Water and blood. Jesus' baptism and death are the most likely references. The emphasis on blood insists on the significance of his death as well as his coming in water. Other interpretations connect the words with baptism and the Lord's Supper, or the water and blood from Jesus' side. The translation keeps the images without substituting any of these explanations.

5:7–8 — The bracketed heavenly witnesses. The words from “in heaven” through “on earth” are a later addition traditionally called the Johannine Comma, familiar from the King James Version. They are absent from the Greek base and have no credible claim to belong to the letter's earliest recoverable text. The known Greek support is very late and reflects an older Latin tradition. They are retained only under the project's policy for substantial familiar disputed passages, not as equally secure text. Without the bracketed words, the witnesses are the Spirit, water, and blood. “The three agree” describes their united testimony.

5:9–13 — Testimony and life. Verse 9's final connection can also be read “the testimony that he has given about his Son.” Verse 13 places the description of the believers earlier in the English sentence for readability. “The requests” in verse 15 means what has been asked for, within verse 14's condition of asking according to God's will.

5:16–17 — Sin leading to death. The letter does not identify a particular act by name. Rejection of the Son and the life in him fits the surrounding argument; physical death as judgment is another interpretation. “God” is supplied as the understood giver of life; grammatically the subject could instead remain the person praying, who brings life through the prayer. The author withholds his encouragement to ask about sin leading to death; he does not explicitly command, “Do not pray.” “Brother” retains the community's family language.

5:18 — Who guards whom. The Greek base reads “guards him,” most naturally making the second person fathered by God Jesus, who guards the believer. A substantial variant, printed in NA28, reads “guards himself,” referring to the believer. The change of verb form by itself does not prove a change of person. “Does not sin” retains the force of the statement, as in 3:6–9; the letter's acknowledgment of believers' sins is not removed.

5:19–21 — The true God and idols. “Power” in verse 19 is supplied to express the world's relation to the evil one. “This one” in verse 20 may refer to Jesus Christ, the nearest named person, or to the Father, “the one who is true.” The English preserves that ambiguity. “Idols” is retained without restricting it to physical images or substituting a particular false teaching.