Verse collection
Bible verses about love
Fourteen verses on God's love and ours, shortest first, from four words to the wedding passage. The Bible describes love mostly by what it does, and grounds all of it in what God did first.
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Every verse below is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible with a line of context. Pick one and learn it by heart in about five days; the short ones take a single sitting.
Do everything in love.
Four words, and the whole letter's argument compressed. One of the shortest memorizable verses in the Bible.
We love because He first loved us.
The order of operations for everything else on this page. Our love is a response, never the opening move.
Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all transgressions.
Love as a covering rather than a feeling; Peter quotes this line in the New Testament, below.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
The Bible's boldest sentence on the subject: love is not one of God's habits but His nature.
Above all, love one another deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Peter, echoing Proverbs 10:12. Above all is a strong opening from a man writing to churches under pressure.
And over all these virtues put on love, which is the bond of perfect unity.
The close of a list of virtues to wear: love goes on last, over everything, like a coat that holds the rest together.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
The last line of the love chapter, and its ranking is the famous part. Faith and hope are for now; love survives into forever.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Spoken by Jesus the night before He did exactly that. The verse quoted on war memorials the world over.
But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Love proven, not claimed, and the timing is the proof: still sinners, not cleaned up first.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The most famous verse in the Bible, and it is a love verse: the scale of the love measured by the size of the gift.
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.
The command comes with a measure (as I have loved you) and a consequence: love is how the world is supposed to recognize the church.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
Jesus' answer when asked to rank all the commandments: two loves, in order, with nothing above them.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul empties the map, ten candidates and a catch-all, and none of them can do it. The great verse on the security of being loved.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
The wedding passage: fifteen verbs and not one feeling among them. The longest passage on this page and the most rewarding to know whole.
Word counts use this site's counting rule in the Berean Standard Bible. Each reference links to the verse in its chapter.
Love you can recite
1 Corinthians 13 gets read at weddings; it lands differently recited from memory on an ordinary Tuesday. The five-step method handles the short verses in a sitting and the long passages in about a week. Start with 1 Corinthians 16:14; at four words, it may be the fastest verse you ever learn, and the slowest to finish obeying.
Questions
What is the most famous Bible verse about love?
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (love is patient, love is kind) is the passage read at most weddings, and John 3:16 is the most famous statement of God's love. The shortest here is 1 Corinthians 16:14, four words: Do everything in love.
What does the Bible say love is?
It describes love mostly by what it does: patient and kind, keeps no account of wrongs, covers a multitude of sins, lays down its life for its friends. And it grounds all of it in God's own character: God is love, and we love because He first loved us.
Which of these verses should I memorize first?
Start with 1 Corinthians 16:14 (four words) or 1 John 4:19 (seven). The famous long passages, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and Romans 8:38-39, are excellent five-day projects with the five-step method.
Half remember a different verse?
The words don't need to match exactly, just type what you remember.