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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

1 John 4:11

Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Commandments;   Fellowship;   Love;   Righteousness;   Thompson Chain Reference - John, Beloved Disciple;   The Topic Concordance - Love;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Love to Man;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Ethics;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - New Command;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Atonement;   Holman Bible Dictionary - John, the Letters of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Atonement;   Brotherly Love;   Forgiveness;   John, Epistles of;   Love, Lover, Lovely, Beloved;   Sin;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Benediction ;   Brotherly Love;   Example;   John Epistles of;   Personality;   Righteous, Righteousness;   Sanctify, Sanctification;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - 8 To Love, Have Affection for;   36 Ought Must;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Brotherly Kindness;   John, the Epistles of;   Love;   Papyrus;   Text and Manuscripts of the New Testament;  

Devotionals:

- Daily Light on the Daily Path - Devotion for September 29;   Every Day Light - Devotion for November 28;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.
King James Version (1611)
Beloued, if God so loued vs, wee ought also to loue one another.
King James Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
English Standard Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
New American Standard Bible
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
New Century Version
Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other.
THE MESSAGE
My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Berean Standard Bible
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Contemporary English Version
Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other.
Complete Jewish Bible
Beloved friends, if this is how God loved us, we likewise ought to love one another.
Darby Translation
Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Easy-to-Read Version
That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Beloued, if God so loued vs, we ought also to loue one another.
George Lamsa Translation
My beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
Lexham English Bible
Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
Literal Translation
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Amplified Bible
Beloved, if God so loved us [in this incredible way], we also ought to love one another.
American Standard Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Bible in Basic English
My loved ones, if God had such love for us, it is right for us to have love for one another.
Hebrew Names Version
Beloved, if God loved us so, we also ought to love one another.
International Standard Version
Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love one another.Matthew 18:33; John 15:12-13; 1 John 3:16;">[xr]
Etheridge Translation
MY beloved, if Aloha so hath loved us, we also are indebted to love one another.
Murdock Translation
My beloved, if God hath so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Dearely beloued, yf God so loued vs, we ought also to loue one another.
English Revised Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
World English Bible
Beloved, if God loved us so, we also ought to love one another.
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
Weymouth's New Testament
Dear friends, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Ye moost dere britheren, if God louede vs, we owen to loue ech other.
Update Bible Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Webster's Bible Translation
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
New English Translation
Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.
New King James Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
New Living Translation
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.
New Life Bible
Dear friends, if God loved us that much, then we should love each other.
New Revised Standard
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Beloved! If, in this way, God, loved us, we also, ought to love, one another.
Douay-Rheims Bible
My dearest, if God hath so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Revised Standard Version
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Beloved yf god so loved vs we ought also to love one another.
Young's Literal Translation
Beloved, if thus did God love us, we also ought one another to love;
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Dearly beloued, yf God so loued vs, we oughte also to loue one another.
Mace New Testament (1729)
beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
Simplified Cowboy Version
Pards, if this is how much God loves us, then we should pay that love forward to others.

Contextual Overview

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10 This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven. 11 Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us. 13 We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

1 John 3:16, 1 John 3:17, 1 John 3:23, Matthew 18:32, Matthew 18:33, Luke 10:37, John 13:34, John 15:12, John 15:13, 2 Corinthians 8:8, 2 Corinthians 8:9, Ephesians 4:31, Ephesians 4:32, Ephesians 5:1, Ephesians 5:2, Colossians 3:13

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 24:22 - General Romans 12:10 - kindly 1 Corinthians 13:4 - is kind 1 John 2:8 - which 1 John 4:21 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 3:14
Then the Lord God said to the snake, "You will be punished for this; you alone of all the animals must bear this curse: From now on you will crawl on your belly, and you will have to eat dust as long as you live.
Genesis 4:14
You are driving me off the land and away from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth, and anyone who finds me will kill me."
Genesis 4:15
But the Lord answered, "No. If anyone kills you, seven lives will be taken in revenge." So the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who met him not to kill him.
Genesis 4:16
And Cain went away from the Lord 's presence and lived in a land called "Wandering," which is east of Eden.
Genesis 4:19
Lamech had two wives, Adah and Zillah.
Genesis 4:20
Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the ancestor of those who raise livestock and live in tents.
Genesis 4:21
His brother was Jubal, the ancestor of all musicians who play the harp and the flute.
Genesis 4:26
Seth had a son whom he named Enosh. It was then that people began using the Lord 's holy name in worship.
Job 16:18
O Earth, don't hide the wrongs done to me! Don't let my call for justice be silenced!
Isaiah 26:21
The Lord is coming from his heavenly dwelling place to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The murders that were secretly committed on the earth will be revealed, and the ground will no longer hide those who have been killed.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Beloved, if God so loved us,.... As to send his Son to be a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, and to obtain eternal life for us through his sufferings and death: the apostle uses the same language his Lord and master did, John 3:16;

we ought also to love one another; for those who are the objects of God's love ought to be the objects of ours; and if God has loved our fellow Christians and brethren to such a degree, as to send his Son to die for them, we ought to love them too; and if we are interested in the same love, the obligation is still the greater; and if God loved them with so great a love, when they did not love him, but were enemies to him, then surely we ought to love them now they are become the friends of God, and ours also; as God loved them freely, and when unlovely, and us likewise in the same manner, and under the same circumstances, then we ought to love, and continue to love the saints, though there may be something in their temper and conduct disagreeable: God is to be imitated in his love; and his love to us, which is unmerited and matchless, should influence and engage us to the love of the brethren, who have a far greater claim to our love than we can make to the love of God; and which indeed is none at all, but what he is pleased to give us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another -

  1. Because he is so much exalted above us, and if he has loved those who were so inferior and so unworthy, we ought to love those who are on a level with us;

(2)Because it is only in this way that we can show that we have his Spirit; and,

(3)Because it is the nature of love to seek the happiness of all. There are much stronger reasons why we should love one another than there were why God should love us; and unless we do this, we can have no evidence that we are his children.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 11. If God so loved us — Without any reason or consideration on our part, and without any desert in us; we ought also, in like manner, to love one another, and not suspend our love to a fellow-creature, either on his moral worth or his love to us. We should love one another for God's sake; and then, no unkind carriage of a brother would induce us to withdraw our love from him; for if it have GOD for its motive and model, it will never fail.


 
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