---
title: "1 John 4 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/1-john/4/
description: "What spirits are of God, and what are not. We must love one another, because God… 1 John 4 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# 1 John 4

1 John 4 is chapter 4 of 5 in the First Letter of John. Here are all 21 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> What spirits are of God, and what are not. We must love one another, because God has loved us.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## 1 John 4 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Most beloved, do not be willing to believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2. The Spirit of God may be known in this way. Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has arrived in the flesh is of God;
3. and every spirit who contradicts Jesus is not of God. And this one is the Antichrist, the one that you have heard is coming, and even now he is in the world.
4. Little sons, you are of God, and so you have overcome him. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
5. They are of the world. Therefore, they speak about the world, and the world listens to them.
6. We are of God. Whoever knows God, listens to us. Whoever is not of God, does not listen to us. In this way, we know the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error.
7. Most beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8. Whoever does not love, does not know God. For God is love.
9. The love of God was made apparent to us in this way: that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
10. In this is love: not as if we had loved God, but that he first loved us, and so he sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins.
11. Most beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13. In this way, we know that we abide in him, and he in us: because he has given to us from his Spirit.
14. And we have seen, and we testify, that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15. Whoever has confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love. And he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him.
17. In this way, the love of God is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment. For as he is, so also are we, in this world.
18. Fear is not in love. Instead, perfect love casts out fear, for fear pertains to punishment. And whoever fears is not perfected in love.
19. Therefore, let us love God, for God first loved us.
20. If anyone says that he loves God, but hates his brother, then he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he does see, in what way can he love God, whom he does not see?
21. And this is the commandment that we have from God, that he who loves God must also love his brother.

## 1 John 4 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Carissimi, nolite omni spiritui credere, sed probate spiritus si ex Deo sint: quoniam multi pseudoprophetæ exierunt in mundum.
2. In hoc cognoscitur Spiritus Dei: omnis spiritus qui confitetur Jesum Christum in carne venisse, ex Deo est:
3. et omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum, ex Deo non est, et hic est antichristus, de quo audistis quoniam venit, et nunc jam in mundo est.
4. Vos ex Deo estis filioli, et vicistis eum, quoniam major est qui in vobis est, quam qui in mundo.
5. Ipsi de mundo sunt: ideo de mundo loquuntur, et mundus eos audit.
6. Nos ex Deo sumus. Qui novit Deum, audit nos; qui non est ex Deo, non audit nos: in hoc cognoscimus Spiritum veritatis, et spiritum erroris.
7. Carissimi, diligamus nos invicem: quia caritas ex Deo est. Et omnis qui diligit, ex Deo natus est, et cognoscit Deum.
8. Qui non diligit, non novit Deum: quoniam Deus caritas est.
9. In hoc apparuit caritas Dei in nobis, quoniam Filium suum unigenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per eum.
10. In hoc est caritas: non quasi nos dilexerimus Deum, sed quoniam ipse prior dilexit nos, et misit Filium suum propitiationem pro peccatis nostris.
11. Carissimi, si sic Deus dilexit nos: et nos debemus alterutrum diligere.
12. Deum nemo vidit umquam. Si diligamus invicem, Deus in nobis manet, et caritas ejus in nobis perfecta est.
13. In hoc cognoscimus quoniam in eo manemus, et ipse in nobis: quoniam de Spiritu suo dedit nobis.
14. Et nos vidimus, et testificamur quoniam Pater misit Filium suum Salvatorem mundi.
15. Quisquis confessus fuerit quoniam Jesus est Filius Dei, Deus in eo manet, et ipse in Deo.
16. Et nos cognovimus, et credidimus caritati, quam habet Deus in nobis. Deus caritas est: et qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo.
17. In hoc perfecta est caritas Dei nobiscum, ut fiduciam habeamus in die judicii: quia sicut ille est, et nos sumus in hoc mundo.
18. Timor non est in caritate: sed perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem, quoniam timor pœnam habet: qui autem timet, non est perfectus in caritate.
19. Nos ergo diligamus Deum, quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos.
20. Si quis dixerit: Quoniam diligo Deum, et fratrem suum oderit, mendax est. Qui enim non diligit fratrem suum quem vidit, Deum, quem non vidit, quomodo potest diligere?
21. Et hoc mandatum habemus a Deo: ut qui diligit Deum, diligat et fratrem suum.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 423: I Believe in Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 465: The Son of God Became Man ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 214: I Believe in God ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 221: I Believe in God ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1604: Marriage in God's Plan ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 458: The Son of God Became Man ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 604: Jesus Died Crucified ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 614: Jesus Died Crucified ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1428: The Conversion of the Baptized ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 2840: "And Forgive Us Our Trespasses, as We Forgive Those Who Trespass AGAINST US" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## The saints

- “Love, and do what thou wilt.” — St. Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on 1 John, VII.8, c. 407 (On this verse: verse 7)
- “I do not want love that can be labeled 'for God'; I want that love which is God.” — St. Catherine of Genoa, Spiritual Dialogue, c. 1510 (On this theme: verse 8)
- “Charity is the friendship of man for God.” — St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II q.23, c. 1270 (On this theme: verse 16)
- “It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.” — St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, ch. 9, 1897 (On this theme: verse 18)
- “Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved Thee.” — St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, X.27, c. 400 (On this theme: verse 19)
- “I ask you to love Me with the same love with which I love you. But for Me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for Me you owe Me, so you love Me not gratuitously but out of duty. Therefore love your neighbor gratuitously.” — St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, ch. 7, 1378 (On this theme: verse 19)
- “The reason for loving God is God Himself; the measure of loving God is to love Him without measure.” — St. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, ch. 1, c. 1128 (On this theme: verse 19)
- “It is not enough to love God if my neighbor does not love Him.” — St. Vincent de Paul, Letter to a Daughter of Charity, c. 1650 (On this theme: verse 20)

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: Viz., by examining whether their teaching be agreeable to the rule of the Catholic faith, and the doctrine of the church. For as he says, (ver. 6,) He that knoweth God, heareth us [the pastors of the church]. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
- Verse 2: Not that the confession of this point of faith alone, is, at all times, and in all cases, sufficient; but that with relation to that time, and for that part of the Christian doctrine, which was then particularly to be confessed, taught, and maintained against the heretics of those days, this was the most proper token, by which the true teachers might be distinguished form the false.
- Verse 3: Viz., either by denying his humanity, or his divinity.
- Verse 3: Not in his person, but in his spirit, and in his precursors.
- Verse 18: Perfect charity, or love, banisheth human fear, that is, the fear of men; as also all perplexing fear, which makes men mistrust or despair of God's mercy; and that kind of servile fear, which makes them fear the punishment of sin more than the offence offered to God. But it no way excludes the wholesome fear of God's judgments, so often recomended in holy writ; nor that fear and trembling, with which we are told to work out our salvation. Phil. 2. 12.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Tue, Nov 17, 2026: St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious — Alleluia, 1 John 4:10b
- Mon, Jan 4, 2027: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious — First Reading, 1 John 3:22—4:6
- Tue, Jan 5, 2027: St. John Neumann, Bishop — First Reading, 1 John 4:7-10
- Wed, Jan 6, 2027: Wednesday after Epiphany — First Reading, 1 John 4:11-18

10 more dates through December 31, 2028, in the [liturgical calendar](https://blessbible.app/calendar/).

Citations as published in the USCCB liturgical calendar (principal Mass, first option).

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).