1 Everyone who has faith that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God: and everyone who has love for the Father has love for his child. 2 In this way, we are certain that we have love for the children of God, when we have love for God and keep his laws. 3 For loving God is keeping his laws: and his laws are not hard. 4 Anything which comes from God is able to overcome the world: and the power by which we have overcome the world is our faith. 5 Who is able to overcome the world but the man who has faith that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is he who came by water and by blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only but by water and by blood. 7◆ And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is true. 8◆ There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood: and all three are in agreement. 9 If we take the witness of men to be true, the witness of God is greater: because this is the witness which God has given about his Son. 10 He who has faith in the Son of God has the witness in himself: he who has not faith in God makes him false, because he has not faith in the witness which God has given about his Son. 11 And his witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who has not the Son of God has not the life. 13 I have put these things in writing for you who have faith in the name of the Son of God, so that you may be certain that you have eternal life. 14 And we are certain that if we make any request to him which is right in his eyes, he will give ear to us: 15 And if we are certain that he gives ear to all our requests, we are equally certain that we will get our requests. 16 If a man sees his brother doing a sin which is not bad enough for death, let him make a prayer to God, and God will give life to him whose sin was not bad enough for death. There is a sin whose punishment is death: I do not say that he may make such a request then. 17 All evil-doing is sin: but death is not the punishment for every sort of sin. 18 We are certain that one who is a child of God will do no sin, but the Son of God keeps him so that he is not touched by the Evil One. 19 We are certain that we are of God, but all the world is in the power of the Evil One. 20 And we are certain that the Son of God has come, and has given us a clear vision, so that we may see him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 My little children, keep yourselves from false gods.
1 John · Bible in Basic English
1 John 5 Bible in Basic English
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Cross references (21)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 John 1:12–13; 1 John 2:29; John 8:42; 1 John 4:7; 1 Peter 1:22–23
- 2 John 13:34–35; 1 John 2:5; 1 John 3:22–24; John 15:17; 1 John 4:21
- 3 John 14:15; John 15:10; Deuteronomy 7:9; John 14:21–24; 2 John 6
- 4 1 Corinthians 15:57; 1 John 4:4; John 16:33; 1 John 3:9; 1 John 5:5
- 5 1 John 4:15; 1 John 5:1
- 6 John 15:26; Hebrews 9:14; John 16:13; Mark 14:24; John 14:17
- 7 Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Acts 5:32; Matthew 3:16–17; John 1:1
- 8 1 John 5:6–7; John 15:26; 1 Peter 3:21; Acts 2:2–4; Romans 8:16
- 9 Matthew 3:16–17; Matthew 17:5; Acts 17:31; John 8:17–19; Acts 5:32
- 10 Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6; John 3:33; John 5:38; Hebrews 3:12
- 11 Romans 6:23; 1 John 2:25; John 3:36; 1 John 5:20; 1 John 4:9
- 12 John 3:36; John 5:24; John 1:12; 1 Corinthians 1:30; John 3:15
- 13 John 20:31; John 1:12; 1 John 3:23; 2 Peter 1:10–11; John 3:18
- 14 John 14:13; Jeremiah 29:12–13; Jeremiah 33:3; 1 John 3:21–22; John 15:7
- 15 Luke 11:9–10; Mark 11:24; Proverbs 15:29; 1 John 5:18–20
- 16 Hebrews 6:4–6; 1 Samuel 2:25; Jeremiah 11:14; Hebrews 10:26–31; Mark 3:28–30
- 17 1 John 3:4; James 1:15; Ezekiel 18:26–32; 1 John 5:16; James 4:7–10
- 18 1 John 3:9; 1 John 5:4; Jude 21; Jude 24; 1 John 5:1
- 19 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 4:4–6; Galatians 1:4; Revelation 12:9
- 20 John 17:3; Luke 24:45; John 14:9; 1 Timothy 3:16; Isaiah 44:6
- 21 1 Corinthians 10:14; 1 Corinthians 10:7; Exodus 20:3–4; 2 Corinthians 6:16–17; 1 Thessalonians 1:9
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
Why does my Bible say something different?
- 1 John 5:7–8: the “three heavenly witnesses”
Older English and Spanish Bibles read: “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” These words, called the Johannine Comma, are absent from virtually every Greek manuscript before the late Middle Ages and from the Greek Fathers. The Patriarchal Text prints them in small type, kept at the wish of the Holy Synod. The Trinity does not depend on them.
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
I Suppose ye remember, those of you who were present yesterday, to what place in the course of this epistle our exposition has reached: namely, "He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 7 (1888)
… but is of antichrist." These words agree with what was said in the Gospel, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Wherefore he again exclaims in his Epistle, "Every one that believeth that Jesus is the Christ, has been born of God;" knowing Jesus Christ to be one and the same, to whom the gates of heaven …
There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it." For he manifestly shows that there are certain brethren for whom we are not commanded to pray, although the Lord bids us pray even for our persecutors.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 6 (1888)
And he that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him; but he that despiseth Him that is begotten casts back the insult upon Him who begat.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)
What about John then, when in his Catholic Epistle he says that there are Three that bear witness, the Spirit and the Water and the Blood?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)