'Love' in the Bible

"You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy.'

But I command you all, love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors;

For if you love only those who love you, what reward have you earned? Do not even the tax-gatherers do that?

Honour thy father and thy mother'; and 'Thou shalt love thy fellow man as much as thyself.'"

"'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,'" He answered, "'with thy whole heart, thy whole soul, thy whole mind.'

And the second is similar to it: 'Thou shalt love thy fellow man as much as thyself.'

and love the best seats at a dinner party or in the synagogues,

and because of the prevalent disregard of God's law the love of the great majority will grow cold;

and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, thy whole soul, thy whole mind, and thy whole strength.'

"The second is this: 'Thou shalt love thy fellow man as thou lovest thyself.' "Other Commandment greater than these there is none."

and To love Him with all one's heart, with all one's understanding, and with all one's strength, and to love one's fellow man no less than oneself, is far better than all our whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices."

"But to you who are listening to me I say, Love your enemies; seek the welfare of those who hate you;

"If you love those who love you, what credit is it to you? Why, even bad men love those who love them.

Nevertheless love your enemies, be beneficent; and lend without hoping for any repayment. Then your recompense shall be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

But neither of them could pay anything; so he freely forgave them both. Tell me, then, which of them will love him most?"

"'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,'" he replied, "'with thy whole heart, thy whole soul, thy whole strength, and thy whole mind; and thy fellow man as much as thyself.'"

"But alas for you Pharisees! for you pay tithes on your mint and rue and every kind of garden vegetable, and are indifferent to justice and the love of God. These are the things you ought to have attended to, while not neglecting the others.

Alas for you Pharisees! for you love the best seats in the synagogues, and you like to be bowed to in places of public resort.

"No servant can be in bondage to two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will cling fast to one and scorn the other. You cannot be bondservants both of God and of gold."

"Beware of the Scribes, who like to walk about in long robes, and love to be bowed to in places of public resort and to occupy the best seats in the synagogues or at a dinner party;

For so greatly did God love the world that He gave His only Son, that every one who trusts in Him may not perish but may have the Life of Ages.

but I know you well, and I know that in your hearts you do not really love God.

"If God were your Father," said Jesus, "you would love me; for it is from God that I came and I am now here. I have not come of myself, but *He* sent me.

A new commandment I give you, to love one another; that as I have loved you, you also may love one another.

It is by this that every one will know that you are my disciples--if you love one another."

"If you love me, you will obey my commandments.

He who has my commandments and obeys them--he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will clearly reveal myself to him."

"If any one loves me," replied Jesus, "he will obey my teaching; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

He who has no love for me does not obey my teaching; and yet the teaching to which you are listening is not mine, but is the teaching of the Father who sent me.

but it is in order that the world may know that I love the Father, and that it is in obedience to the command which the Father gave me that I thus act. Rise, let us be going."

As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you: continue in my love.

If you obey my commands, you will continue in my love, as I have obeyed my Father's commands and continue in His love.

This is my commandment to you, to love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this--a man laying down his life for his friends.

"Thus I command you to love one another.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own property. But because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world--for that reason the world hates you.

I in them and Thou in me; that they may stand perfected in one; that the world may come to understand that Thou didst send me and hast loved them with the same love as that with which Thou hast loved me.

"Father, those whom Thou hast given me--I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see the glory--my glory--my gift from Thee, which Thou hast given me because Thou didst love me before the creation of the world.

And I have made known Thy name to them and will make it known, that the love with which Thou hast loved me may be in them, and that I may be in them."

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others do?" "Yes, Master," was his answer; "you know that you are dear to me." "Then feed my lambs," replied Jesus.

Again a second time He asked him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" "Yes, Master," he said, "you know that you are dear to me." "Then be a shepherd to my sheep," He said.

After removing him, He raised up David to be their king, to whom He also bore witness when He said, "'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man I love, who will obey all My commands.'

and that this hope never disappoints, because God's love for us floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

But God gives proof of His love to us in Christ's dying for us while we were still sinners.

Now we know that for those who love God all things are working together for good--for those, I mean, whom with deliberate purpose He has called.

Who shall separate us from Christ's love? Shall affliction or distress, persecution or hunger, nakedness or danger or the sword?

nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which rests upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let your love be perfectly sincere. Regard with horror what is evil; cling to what is right.

As for brotherly love, be affectionate to one another; in matters of worldly honour, yield to one another.

Owe nothing to any one except mutual love; for he who loves his fellow man has satisfied the demands of Law.

For the precepts, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt do no murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not covet," and all other precepts, are summed up in this one command, "Thou shalt love thy fellow man as much as thou lovest thyself."

Love avoids doing any wrong to one's fellow man, and is therefore complete obedience to Law.

If your brother is pained by the food you are eating, your conduct is no longer controlled by love. Take care lest, by the food you eat, you lead to ruin a man for whom Christ died.

But I entreat you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love which His Spirit inspires, to help me by wrestling in prayer to God on my behalf,

But--to use the words of Scripture--we speak of things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, and which have never entered the heart of man: all that God has in readiness for them that love Him.

Now as to things which have been sacrificed to idols. This is a subject which we already understand--because we all have knowledge of it. Knowledge, however, tends to make people conceited; it is love that builds us up.

If I can speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but am destitute of Love, I have but become a loud-sounding trumpet or a clanging cymbal.

If I possess the gift of prophecy and am versed in all mysteries and all knowledge, and have such absolute faith that I can remove mountains, but am destitute of Love, I am nothing.

And if I distribute all my possessions to the poor, and give up my body to be burned, but am destitute of Love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy. Love is not forward and self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited.

Love never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will be done away with; if there are languages, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be brought to an end.

And so there remain Faith, Hope, Love--these three; and of these the greatest is Love.

Be eager in your pursuit of this Love, and be earnestly ambitious for spiritual gifts, but let it be chiefly so in order that you may prophesy.

Let all that you do be done from motives of love.

The Churches in the province of Asia send you greetings; and Aquila and Prisca, in hearty Christian love, do the same, together with the Church which meets at their house.

If any one is destitute of love to the Lord, let him be accursed. OUR LORD IS COMING.

My love in Christ Jesus be with you all.

For with many tears I write to you, and in deep suffering and depression of spirit, not in order to grieve you, but in the hope of showing you how brimful my heart is with love for you.

I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love.

For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which we have arrived being this--that One having died for all, His death was their death,

by purity of life, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love;

There is no narrowness in our love to you: the narrowness is in your own feelings.

Yes, just as you are already very rich in faith, readiness of speech, knowledge, unwearied zeal, and in the love that is in you, implanted by us, see to it that this grace of liberal giving also flourishes in you.

I am not saying this by way of command, but to test by the standard of other men's earnestness the genuineness of your love also.

Exhibit therefore to the Churches a proof of your love, and a justification of our boasting to these brethren about you.

I have thought it absolutely necessary therefore to request these brethren to visit you before I myself come, and to make sure beforehand that the gift of love which you have already promised may be ready as a gift of love, and may not seem to have been something which I have extorted from you.

while they themselves also in supplications on your behalf pour out their longing love towards you because of God's surpassing grace which is resting upon you.

And why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do.

If I love you so intensely, am I the less to be loved? Be that as it may: I was not a burden to you. But being by no means scrupulous, I entrapped you, they say!

Finally, brethren, be joyful, secure perfection of character, take courage, be of one mind, live in peace. And then God who gives love and peace will be with you.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance; but only faith working through love.

You however, brethren, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an excuse for giving way to your lower natures; but become bondservants to one another in a spirit of love.

For the entire Law has been obeyed when you have kept the single precept, which says, "You are to love your fellow man equally with yourself."

The Spirit, on the other hand, brings a harvest of love, joy, peace; patience towards others, kindness, benevolence;

even as, in His love, He chose us as His own in Christ before the creation of the world, that we might be holy and without blemish in His presence.

For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which prevails among you, and of your love for all God's people,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the intense love which He bestowed on us,

I pray that Christ may make His home in your hearts through your faith; so that having your roots deep and your foundations strong, in love, you may become mighty to grasp the idea,

yes, to attain to a knowledge of the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, so that you may be made complete in accordance with God's own standard of completeness.

Dependent on Him, the whole body--its various parts closely fitting and firmly adhering to one another-- grows by the aid of every contributory link, with power proportioned to the need of each individual part, so as to build itself up in a spirit of love.

Married men, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up to death for her;

So too married men ought to love their wives as much as they love themselves. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Yet I insist that among you also, each man is to love his own wife as much as he loves himself, and let a married woman see to it that she treats her husband with respect.

Peace be to the brethren, and love combined with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with perfect sincerity.

And it is my prayer that your love may be more and more accompanied by clear knowledge and keen perception, for testing things that differ,

These latter preach Him from love to me, knowing that I am here for the defence of the Good News;

If then I can appeal to you as the followers of Christ, if there is any persuasive power in love and any common sharing of the Spirit, or if you have any tender-heartedness and compassion, make my joy complete by being of one mind,

united by mutual love, with harmony of feeling giving your minds to one and the same object.