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.

²⁴ All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.^(A)

3 ¹ See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

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.^(A)

Psalm 18

Royal Thanksgiving for Victory

To the leader. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:

¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.^(A)

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

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.^{(A) 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.^(B)

⁹ But, as it is written,