¹² And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.^(A)

⁹ And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight^(A)

God Is Love

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.^{(A) 8} Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.^{(B) 10} In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.^{(C) 11} Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.^{(D) 12} No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.^(E)

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.^{(F) 16} So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’^(A)

Love One Another

¹¹ For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.^{(A) 12} We must not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. ¹³ Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you.^{(B) 14} We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love abides in death.^{(C) 15} All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them.^{(D) 16} We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters.^{(E) 17} How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?^(F)

¹⁸ Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.^{(G) 19} And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him^(H)