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7-9 You, my children, are younger than I am, and I don’t want you to be taken in by any clever talk just here. The man who lives a consistently good life is a good man, as surely as God is good. But the man whose life is habitually sinful is spiritually a son of the devil, for the devil is behind all sin, as he always has been. Now the Son of God came to earth with the express purpose of liquidating the devil’s activities. The man who is really God’s son does not practise sin, for God’s nature is in him, for good, and such a heredity is incapable of sin.

10 Here we have a clear indication as to who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. The man who does not lead a good life is no son of God, nor is the man who fails to love his brother.

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The one who does what is sinful is of the devil,(A) because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God(B) appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.(C) No one who is born of God(D) will continue to sin,(E) because God’s seed(F) remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God(G) are and who the children of the devil(H) are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love(I) their brother and sister.(J)

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