5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as writing to thee a new commandment, but that which we have had from [the] beginning, that we should love one another.
For this is the message which ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another:
A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity,
and walk in love, even as the Christ loved us, and delivered himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.
Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth to unfeigned brotherly love, love one another out of a pure heart fervently; being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by [the] living and abiding word of God.
Beloved, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment, which ye have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye heard. Again, I write a new commandment to you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light already shines.
*We* know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love [his] brother abides in death. Every one that hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Hereby we have known love, because *he* has laid down his life for us; and *we* ought for the brethren to lay down [our] lives. But whoso may have the world's substance, and see his brother having need, and shut up his bowels from him, how abides the love of God in him? Children, let us not love with word, nor with tongue, but in deed and in truth.
And this is his commandment, that we believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and that we love one another, even as he has given us commandment.
Beloved, let us love one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God. He that loves not has not known God; for God is love. Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.