The eighteenth of the Epistles, and the twenty-third book in the New Testament, is I John. It is the first of three letters written by the apostle to be found in the Bible.
The letter was written around 90 AD, some 50 or 60 years since Jesus' crucifixion, and John was now an old man. He was probably the only one of Jesus' 12 disciples still alive at this time, and so his words would have been well respected amongst Christians.
Like II Peter, written some 20 years before, I John is concerned with false teachers who have entered the church. John tells his readers what it means to have fellowship with God, and he warns them about teachers who reject Christ's birth.
"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."
We are unsure what "the sin that ends in death" is exactly. It may be blasphemy, which ends in spiritual death, as we see in Mark 3:29
"but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation"