Bible verses about love
Scripture commands love far more often than it defines it, and where it does define it the definition is a list of behaviors rather than a feeling. These passages run from the command in Leviticus to the letter that says God is love, with a sentence on each.
“‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. — Leviticus 19:18 · WEB
Holiness is spelled out as unharvested field corners, wages paid the same day, and loving a neighbor as oneself.
You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. — Deuteronomy 6:5 · WEB
The central command is to love God entirely, and the method of passing it on is ordinary conversation at four times of day.
Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned. — Song of Solomon 8:7 · WEB
The book's thesis arrives at its close: love measured against death and the grave, priced beyond purchase, and lit by a flame the versions read differently.
But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, — Matthew 5:44 · WEB
The sixth and the summit: a command with no precedent, grounded in what God does with weather.
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ — Matthew 22:37 · WEB
The last test of the day gets a straight answer — two commandments, and everything else hanging from them.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. — John 3:16 · WEB
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. — John 13:34 · WEB
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. — John 15:13 · WEB
The measure of the love is named, and the relationship is renamed on the night before it is proved.
But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8 · WEB
God's love is proved by its timing — the death came while the beloved were enemies — and the argument runs from the harder thing to the easier.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, — Romans 8:38 · WEB
Seven hardships and ten powers are inventoried and dismissed, and the love that holds is located where nothing created can reach.
Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, — 1 Corinthians 13:4 · WEB
Love is defined by what it does and refuses to do, and almost every item on the list names something the Corinthians were doing.
But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13:13 · WEB
The gifts are temporary by design because they are partial, and the chapter ends by naming the three things that outlast them.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, — Ephesians 5:25 · WEB
The longer and harder instruction goes to the party holding the power, and the model given is a death.
And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins. — 1 Peter 4:8 · WEB
My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. — 1 John 3:18 · WEB
Love is defined by a single act and then measured by a very small one, and the distance between them is the point.
He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. — 1 John 4:8 · WEB
The letter's second definition of God arrives, and it is used as the reason for a command rather than as a comfort.
We love him, because he first loved us. — 1 John 4:19 · WEB
The chapter closes with an argument from the easier case to the harder, and it treats loving the invisible God as the harder one.