This verse is still dependent on the “if” clause in verse 21. The two clauses show that love between God and the Christians is reciprocal; God shows his love by giving them what they ask for, and they show their love by doing what pleases him.

In we receive from him, the present tense again shows that the reference is to a present reality. The clause may have to be rendered ‘to us is given by him/God,’ ‘God gives us.’

For whatever we ask or, shifting to a temporal clause, ‘whenever we ask (him) for something,’ see comments on “whoever keeps” in 2.5. For comparable statements on asking a favor from God, see John 16.23-24, 26-27; and compare Matt 18.19; Mark 11.24; Luke 11.9-13; James 1.5.

Ask: for this request, which is addressed to a superior power, several versions use ‘to beseech/entreat,’ ‘to call upon,’ or an idiomatic phrase of the same meaning such as ‘to say poor,’ that is, to call attention to one’s situation, ‘to ask with one’s heart coming out (that is, very sincerely).’

Other versions prefer their term for “to pray.” Some idiomatic or descriptive renderings of that concept are ‘to talk to God,’ ‘to cause God to know,’ ‘to lift up one’s words to God.’ Terms referring to the reciting of long, often meaningless prayers, or having the connotation of irreverent insistence, should be avoided.

Because: the following clause indicates a certain parallelism between God’s acts of love for his children and the Christians’ acts of love for their Father. Therefore the conjunction because has the sense of ‘since,’ ‘in view of the fact that.’

For we keep his commandments, see comments on 2.3. The present tense of this and the following verb has durative force.

What pleases him in the Greek is literally “things pleasing before him.” Some other renderings used are ‘what he rejoices in,’ ‘things that make him happy.’ Sometimes idiomatic phrases serve to render the concept; for example, ‘what his heart considers good,’ ‘what fits his eye,’ ‘what his bowels are sweet with,’ ‘what arrives at his gall.’ For some further details compare A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Mark on 1.11.

Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The First Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .