1 John 4:11

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!

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.

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.

Good News Translation
Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should 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

⁷My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. ¹¹My 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! ¹³This is how we know we're living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He's given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we've seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we've embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

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
God told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."

Genesis 4:15
God told him, "No. Anyone who kills Cain will pay for it seven times over." God put a mark on Cain to protect him so that no one who met him would kill him.

Genesis 4:16
Cain left the presence of God and lived in No-Man's-Land, east of Eden.

Genesis 4:19
Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal, the ancestor of all who live in tents and herd cattle. His brother's name was Jubal, the ancestor of all who play the lyre and flute. Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who worked at the forge making bronze and iron tools. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

Job 16:18
"O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry! There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name— My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God. I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor. "Only a few years are left before I set out on the road of no return."

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.