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

² This is how we know^(A) that we love the children of God:^(B) by loving God and carrying out his commands.

⁹ No one who is born of God^(A) will continue to sin,^(B) because God’s seed^(C) remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.