4-6 If someone claims, “I know him well!” but doesn’t keep his commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. But the one who keeps God’s word is the person in whom we see God’s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we’re in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.

7-8 My dear friends, I’m not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you’ve known it from day one. It’s always been implicit in the Message you’ve heard. On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you—the darkness fading away and the True Light already blazing!

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Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.(A)

Dear friends,(B) I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.(C) This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command;(D) its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing(E) and the true light(F) is already shining.(G)

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