God Is Faithful And Reliable (I John 1:5-10) God's Word and The Message Translations

GOD'S WORD TRANSLATION

5   This is the message we heard from Christ and are reporting to you: God is light, and there isn’t any darkness in him. 

6   If we say, “We have a relationship with God” and yet live in the dark, we’re lying. We aren’t being truthful.

7   But if we live in the light in the same way that God is in the light, we have a relationship with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from every sin. 

8   If we say, “We aren’t sinful” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

9   God is faithful and reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we’ve done wrong. 

10  If we say, “We have never sinned,” we turn God into a liar and his Word is not in us.

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

5     This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.

6-7  If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.

8-10  If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.