Bible verses about love
Love is at the heart of the Bible’s message. John goes as far as to say that God is love (1 John 4:16): love is not only something God does but His very nature, and it showed itself above all when the Father sent the Son to save the world.
Because God loves first, love becomes the calling of everyone who follows Him. Jesus summed up the whole law in two commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor. The love Scripture describes is less a feeling than a way of acting: patient, faithful and practical.
These verses show how God loves us, what real love looks like and how His love teaches us to love Him and others.
God’s love for us
The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
Jer 31:3 · King James Version (1769)
These words answer Israel’s complaint in exile that God had shown His love long ago but now seemed far away. As Matthew Henry and the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary explain, God replies that His love has not changed: it is everlasting, and so He keeps drawing His people to Himself.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 · King James Version (1769)
Jesus spoke these words to Nicodemus, and they state the gospel more plainly than almost any other verse. The measure of God’s love is that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:8 · King James Version (1769)
God did not wait for us to become worthy. Christ died for people who were still sinners and even enemies of God, to save them not in their sins but from them.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom 8:38–39 · King James Version (1769)
Paul runs through everything that could threaten believers: death and life, spiritual powers, the present and the future, height and depth. None of it, he concludes, can separate those who are in Christ from God’s love.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
1 John 3:1 · King James Version (1769)
God could have saved us without bringing us into His family. Instead He adopts us as His children and lets us call Him Father, and John can only exclaim in wonder.
What real love looks like
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
1 Cor 13:4–7 · King James Version (1769)
Paul wrote to a church full of envy, pride and rivalry, and these lines are also a quiet rebuke of their behavior. Every trait describes how we treat other people: love is shown by what it does, not by what it feels.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
1 Cor 13:13 · King James Version (1769)
The gifts the Corinthians prized will pass away, but faith, hope and love remain. Commentators explain the greatness of love in different ways: the Geneva Bible notes and John MacArthur say faith and hope will be fulfilled in heaven while love goes on forever, and William MacDonald adds that love is greater because it is turned toward others.
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
1 Pet 4:8 · King James Version (1769)
Peter quotes Proverbs 10:12. Love does not expose other people’s faults or keep bringing them up, but covers and forgives them. MacDonald warns that this is not about how sins are forgiven before God: only Christ’s blood does that.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18 · King James Version (1769)
Love has to be real, not just spoken. Kind words are not enough: love proves itself sincere through deeds.
Loving God and others
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Matt 22:37–39 · King James Version (1769)
A teacher of the law asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest, and He answered with Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Heart, soul and mind are not separate compartments here: together they describe a love that involves the whole person.
Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Rom 13:10 · King James Version (1769)
Someone who truly loves will not harm a neighbor. In this way love does everything the commandments about our neighbor require.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
John 13:34–35 · King James Version (1769)
On His last evening with His disciples, Jesus called this command new. The command to love one’s neighbor was old; what was new, MacArthur explains, was the measure: to love as Christ has loved us, even to giving His life. Such love becomes the mark of His disciples.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Matt 5:44 · King James Version (1769)
Many teachers of Jesus’ day limited the neighbor to their own people, but Jesus extends love to enemies. Because this love is commanded, it is a matter of the will and not only of feeling.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:7–8 · King James Version (1769)
Love comes from God. John does not merely say that God loves but that God is love, so those who are born of Him begin to love, and a lack of love shows that a person does not know Him.
We love him, because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19 · King James Version (1769)
Our love is always a response. God loved us first, when He sent His Son, and that love awakens ours.
The more we take in how much God loves us, the more His love flows through us to others.