Journal · 2026-09-30
Bible Verses About Love
Eight passages from the King James Bible on love: how God loves, how Christians are asked to love, and how scripture speaks of love in marriage.
The Bible uses the word love in more than one way. There is the love God has for the world, the love Jesus commanded his followers to show each other, and the love between a husband and wife celebrated in the Song of Solomon. The King James Version sometimes translates the same idea as charity, an older English word for love that gives itself away.
Here are the Bible verses about love that people choose most often for weddings, baptisms, anniversaries and everyday reminders.
God's love for us
Every other kind of love in scripture starts here.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”
Perhaps the most quoted sentence in the Bible, spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus at night. The word so measures the love by what it gave: an only begotten Son.
1 John 4:19
“We love him, because he first loved us.”
John reverses the order people expect. Our love is not the starting point but the response. It is a gentle verse for children's rooms and baptism gifts because it says, simply, you were loved first.
Matthew 3:17
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
At the baptism of Jesus a voice from heaven calls him beloved before he has preached a sermon or worked a miracle. Many parents choose this verse for a child's baptism for that reason: love that comes before any achievement.
The love we are asked to show
The New Testament turns love into something practical: patient, kind, willing to kneel.
1 Corinthians 13:4
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind.”
The famous love chapter was written to a quarrelsome church, not a wedding party. Paul describes love by what it does and does not do, beginning with patience and kindness, the two qualities most tested at home.
John 13:34
“That ye love one another; as I have loved you.”
Jesus gives this new commandment on the night he washes his disciples' feet. The measure is not love your neighbor as yourself but as I have loved you, and he had just shown them what that looks like.
Galatians 5:22
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.”
Love heads Paul's list of the fruit of the Spirit, and the rest of the list reads like a description of it: joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness. Fruit grows rather than being manufactured, which is the point.
Love in marriage
Scripture also speaks plainly and warmly about the love between husband and wife.
Song of Solomon 6:3
“I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine.”
A line of pure belonging from the Bible's love poem. Couples often have it engraved inside wedding rings or read at their ceremony, because it says in nine words what vows take a page to say.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
“A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
The Preacher is talking about companionship in general, but Christian couples have long read the third strand as God at the center of a marriage. It has become a favorite reading at Christian weddings.
Choosing one of these verses for a particular day is mostly a matter of who is being celebrated. For a wedding or an anniversary, the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes speak to the couple, while 1 Corinthians 13 speaks to the kind of marriage they hope to build. For a baptism or a new baby, 1 John 4:19 and the words spoken at the baptism of Jesus put the emphasis on a love that arrives before the child has done anything at all. For a friend going through a hard season, John 3:16 is the widest possible reminder that they are loved.
It also helps to think about who will read the verse, and where. A passage hung in a shared living room will be seen by guests and children as well as by the couple, so a short, well-known line tends to wear better over the years than a long or obscure one. In a bedroom or a private study, a longer passage that means something to you alone is perfectly at home.
Many of these Bible verses about love end up framed in a bedroom, a nursery or a hallway where the whole family passes. Each is available as a watercolor print; browse our scripture wall art or all of our Christian wall art.