What Does the Bible Say About Love And Forgiveness?

Colossians 3:12-14 ESV / 50 helpful votes

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

1 Peter 4:8 ESV / 43 helpful votes

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

1 John 4:18 ESV / 27 helpful votes

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Colossians 3:13 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV / 19 helpful votes

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Romans 12:9 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

John 3:16 ESV / 17 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Matthew 6:9-13 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 11:29-30 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

1 Peter 3:18-22 ESV / 11 helpful votes

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Proverbs 17:9 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 ESV / 10 helpful votes

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Matthew 9:6-8 ESV / 10 helpful votes

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

John 15:13 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 8 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

John 20:19-24 ESV / 8 helpful votes

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” ...

Hebrews 10:17 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

2 Thessalonians 2:14-15 ESV / 7 helpful votes

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

Romans 5:8 ESV / 7 helpful votes

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 8:12 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Psalm 1:1-6 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; ...

Romans 5:5 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

John 14:23 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 10:10 ESV / 6 helpful votes

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

1 Timothy 2:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Romans 13:8-10 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

John 14:15 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John 14:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 13:34 ESV / 5 helpful votes

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Mark 16:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

1 John 3:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Colossians 3:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

Ephesians 5:1-33 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ...

Romans 14:1-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ...

Mark 3:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

1 John 3:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Mark 3:28-29 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—

Psalm 13:2-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Job 7:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

Jeremiah 20:14-18 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?

Bible Verses about Love And Forgiveness