Each bible verse about love the lord your god below is quoted exactly from the King James Version, with its reference beneath.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV)
Jews call this line the Shema, from its first word in Hebrew. It comes just before the bible verse about love the lord your god, because the command to love rests on the fact that there is only one God worth loving with everything.
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Deuteronomy 6:5 (KJV)
Heart, soul and might together describe the whole person: will and feeling, life itself, and strength. The command leaves no part of you outside it.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (KJV)
Love for God is passed on in ordinary conversation, at the table and on the road. Parents are told to talk about it all day, not only on Sundays.
And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Deuteronomy 10:12 (KJV)
Moses asks what God requires and answers with a short list. Loving him sits in the center, joined to reverence, walking and serving.
Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.
Deuteronomy 11:1 (KJV)
Love and obedience travel together. The word alway reminds us that this is a lifelong habit and not a seasonal enthusiasm.
Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God.
Joshua 23:11 (KJV)
Joshua is old, and this is among his last warnings. Loving the LORD your God takes attention, he says, because other loves will always compete for your heart.
I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.
Psalms 18:1 (KJV)
David begins a long song of thanks with a personal vow. Love for God here is not an abstract duty but a grateful response from a man who had been rescued.
O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.
Psalms 31:23 (KJV)
The psalm turns the command into an invitation to the whole community. God keeps the faithful, and the phrase proud doer refers to those who act arrogantly, who are repaid in the end.
I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
Psalms 116:1 (KJV)
The psalmist gives a reason for his love: God listened. Many believers can trace their own love for God back to a moment when they felt heard.
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Matthew 22:37 (KJV)
Asked by a lawyer which commandment was greatest, Jesus quotes the Shema and adds the word mind. Love for God includes how we think, read and reason.
This is the first and great commandment.
Matthew 22:38 (KJV)
Jesus ranks it first. Whatever else we get right in life, the bible verse about love the lord your god sets the order of priorities.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew 22:39 (KJV)
The second commandment is described as like the first. Love of God and love of neighbor are two sides of the same life, which is why the Gospel writers record them together.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Mark 12:30 (KJV)
Mark lists four faculties: heart, soul, mind and strength. It is the most complete version of the bible verse about love the lord your god in the New Testament.
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
Luke 10:27 (KJV)
In Luke, the lawyer himself gives the answer, and Jesus affirms it. The follow-up question, who is my neighbor, leads straight into the parable of the Good Samaritan.
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
John 14:15 (KJV)
Jesus ties love to action. It is not sentiment alone, but a life shaped by his words, which fits the pattern of Deuteronomy 11:1.
We love him, because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19 (KJV)
This short verse explains how any of us can obey the great command. Love for God is always a response to a love that began on his side.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
1 John 5:3 (KJV)
John says the commandments are not heavy. For a person who loves God, obedience is closer to joy than to burden.
But if any man love God, the same is known of him.
1 Corinthians 8:3 (KJV)
Paul turns the usual question around. He says that the one who loves God is known by God, so the greater fact is God’s knowing us.
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Jude 1:21 (KJV)
Jude closes with a practical instruction. Staying in the love of God is a daily choice, and he pairs it with hope in Christ’s mercy.
The bible verse about love the lord your god arrives in the middle of Moses’ last sermon. Israel is camped on the edge of the Promised Land, and the old generation is gone. Moses wants the new one to know what matters. Before listing rules, he gives a single sentence that explains them all: love the LORD your God.
That order is important. The commandments did not come first and love second. God had already rescued Israel from Egypt and brought them to Sinai. Love was the proper response to a rescue that had already happened. The law then described what such love looks like in daily life.
So the great commandment is not a demand made on strangers. It is an invitation addressed to people who have been loved. Understanding that helps us hear the bible verse about love the lord your god as a gift more than a burden. Every bible verse about love the lord your god returns to the same center.
The Shema begins with Hear, O Israel, and it is recited morning and evening by observant Jews to this day. It opens with a statement of faith: the LORD our God is one. Then comes the command to love. The two belong together, because loving anything fully requires believing it is worth loving.
In Jesus’ day, a pious Jew would have said the Shema twice daily from memory. When the lawyer asked about the greatest commandment, he was asking about words everyone knew. Jesus did not invent a new teaching. He picked the one at the center of Israel’s faith and held it up.
For Christians, reading the Shema opens a window into the world in which Jesus grew up. It reminds us that the bible verse about love the lord your god has a long history of use in prayer, in teaching and in the daily rhythm of a household. A bible verse about love the lord your god is best learned by heart and then lived.
The Hebrew word for heart, lev, refers to the inner life: will, intention and thought as well as feeling. The word for soul, nephesh, means the whole living self, including appetite and breath. The word for might, meod, simply means very much, or all that you have. Together they leave nothing out.
Think of someone who loves a spouse with only part of their attention. We would call that a weak love. God asks for something more complete. The bible verse about love the lord your god asks not for a corner of your life but for a center that organizes the rest.
That can be freeing as well as demanding. When your love for God has a center, other loves fall into place. Work, family, hobbies and friendships find their right size. Many people feel scattered because they have too many centers, and the great commandment gives them one. Notice how this bible verse about love the lord your god begins with God’s own action.
When Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, he says heart, soul and mind. Mark’s version lists heart, soul, mind and strength. The variations show that the Gospel writers were not copying a slogan word for word but conveying its meaning for a wider world. The mind was a way of saying the whole thinking self.
This matters for how we live out the bible verse about love the lord your god. Loving God with the mind means reading the Bible carefully, asking honest questions, and being willing to learn. It rules out a faith that avoids thinking. God did not give us minds only to switch them off at church.
It also guards against the opposite danger, a faith of the head alone. The mind is one of four faculties in Mark, and it sits beside heart and strength. Thinking, feeling and acting are meant to work together. Many Christians say the bible verse about love the lord your god reshaped their priorities.
When a lawyer tests Jesus with the question, which is the great commandment, Jesus answers without hesitation. This is the first and great commandment. It is a ranking, and the ranking has consequences. If loving God is first, then everything else is second, even good things like family, service and justice.
That ordering can feel jarring to people who give their best energy to work or children. But Jesus does not say that these are unimportant. He says that they flow from the first. A person who loves God well will usually love family, neighbors and work better too.
Our page on the greatest Bible verses places this commandment among the most important texts in Scripture. Keep it in view whenever you feel pulled in too many directions. Say the bible verse about love the lord your god aloud at the start of the day.
Jesus immediately adds that the second commandment is like the first: love thy neighbour as thyself. By linking them, he shows that they cannot be separated. A person who says they love God but hates a neighbor is lying, as John later writes. The bible verse about love the lord your god always travels with its companion.
This is not a loophole that lets us skip one. It is a pair of hinges on which the whole law swings. When Jesus says all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, he is giving a summary of what it means to live well before God and others.
You can read more about the second half on our page about loving your neighbor as yourself. Together the two pages give a full picture of what Jesus called the greatest command. The bible verse about love the lord your god keeps its force across centuries.
John says it clearly: we love him because he first loved us. That puts every bible verse about love the lord your god in the proper light. We are not working our way toward God’s affection. We are responding to an affection that is already poured out.
This protects the command from becoming a source of anxiety. If love for God depended on our emotions, we would constantly doubt ourselves. Because it starts with his love, we can come to him tired, distracted and imperfect, and begin again. Our love may be small, but it answers a great one.
For a closer look at the other side of this relationship, see our page on loving God. It explores how that love grows through prayer, worship and obedience. Ask which part of the bible verse about love the lord your god you find hardest.
Jesus says that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. John says that this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. Moses says to love the LORD and keep his charge always. The bible verse about love the lord your god and the call to obey are repeated side by side throughout Scripture.
Think about how love works in a family. A child who loves a parent wants to please them, not because of fear but because of affection. Obedience can be a way of saying thank you. It can also be an act of trust, when we cannot see why a command is given.
At the same time, obedience without love becomes empty ritual. Jesus criticized those who honored God with their lips while their hearts were far away. The healthiest picture is love that produces obedience, and obedience that deepens love. Our page on obedience to God looks at this connection. Let the bible verse about love the lord your god steer small decisions as well as large ones.
Deuteronomy 6 does not stop with the command. It tells parents to teach these words diligently to their children, to talk about them while sitting, walking, lying down and rising up. The home becomes the main classroom for the bible verse about love the lord your god.
Practically, that means weaving it into life. Say it together at breakfast. Hang it in the hall. Ask at dinner how someone loved God today. Let children see you reading Scripture and praying, not as a performance but as a regular part of your life. Children learn what they see more than what they hear.
It does not require a perfect family. Many parents feel they fall short. The command is not given to the flawless but to ordinary people who are trying. Even small, imperfect efforts plant seeds that grow. Teach the bible verse about love the lord your god to children in plain words.
Start with attention. Set aside a few minutes each day to be quiet and read. A bible verse about love the lord your god can be your focus. Ask God to help you want what he wants. Love often grows through repeated time with the one we love.
Add gratitude. Keep a short list of things you thank God for each night. Gratitude turns the heart toward the giver. Over weeks, you may notice that your attitude changes. You begin to see his kindness in ordinary details like food, weather, or a friend’s message.
Finally, notice what competes. Phones, worries, ambitions and even good works can crowd out love. You do not need to eliminate them. You only need to put them in their place, and to return to God when they drift. The practice is simple, and it grows slowly. A bible verse about love the lord your god can be prayed as well as studied.
Read Scripture in larger portions than a verse at a time. Whole books reveal their shape. Ask questions: who wrote this, to whom, and why? Keep a notebook. A bible verse about love the lord your god needs context just as any other passage does, and context deepens understanding.
Read good books by thoughtful Christians, past and present. Talk with others who disagree on secondary things. Be curious about science, history and art, trusting that all truth belongs to God. Loving God with the mind does not mean having every answer. It means being willing to keep learning.
And guard your mind. Notice what you feed it. A steady diet of anger or anxiety shapes the way you see the world. Our page on the mind offers helpful passages for this. Consider writing the bible verse about love the lord your god in your own handwriting.
Strength includes your hands, your time and your resources. It means what you do with a week and a paycheck. Loving God with your strength can look like serving at church, helping a neighbor, or doing your job honestly. Work done for others becomes worship when it is offered to God.
The bible verse about love the lord your god in Mark 12:30 includes strength as the fourth element. It reminds us that faith is not only inward. Bodies matter. Rest matters too. Taking a Sabbath or caring for your health can be a way of honoring the body God has given.
If you feel you have little strength to give, remember Psalm 18:1. David says, I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. When our own strength is low, God is the source we draw from. Offer what you have, and let him multiply it. The bible verse about love the lord your god is simple to say and a lifetime to live. Read the bible verse about love the lord your god alongside the verse about loving your neighbor.
Almost every believer has seasons when love for God feels flat. Prayer seems empty, and the Bible reads like any other book. This does not mean you have failed. The psalmists describe such times with honesty. David asks where God is, and he asks it in the middle of worship songs.
During a dry season, the bible verse about love the lord your god is still a call to faithfulness. You can choose to show up, to read a little, to pray a short prayer, to serve someone. Feelings often follow actions. Many people discover that love returns while they are doing the next faithful thing.
If dryness continues, talk with a trusted friend or pastor. Sometimes it is linked to exhaustion, grief or depression, and care for those needs is part of loving God with your body and mind. God is patient and will meet you. No bible verse about love the lord your god asks for a performance.
Idolatry in the Bible is not limited to statues. It is anything that takes the place of the first love. Money, approval, comfort and even good things like family or ministry can become ultimate. Joshua 23:11 warns Israel to take good heed to love the LORD because lesser loves are always at the door.
A helpful test is to ask what you would be devastated to lose. The answer reveals what you love most. If you discover that something other than God sits at the center, don’t panic. Name it honestly and ask God to reorder your loves. The bible verse about love the lord your god can serve as a gentle mirror.
Our page on worship also explores how to keep God first in daily life. Worship is the act of reminding ourselves where our deepest loyalty belongs. In every bible verse about love the lord your god, the invitation comes first.
The first Christians took the great commandment seriously. They shared meals, sold property to help those in need and cared for the sick, even in plague. Outsiders noticed. They said, see how they love one another. Their love for God showed in practical love for people.
It also showed in worship. Early believers gathered on the first day of the week to sing, pray and break bread. Love for God was nourished in community, not just in private. The bible verse about love the lord your god was lived in the shared life of the church.
That example still speaks. If your faith feels isolated, find a community where love for God is practiced in actual relationships. Meals, prayers and service weave the command into everyday life. Return to the bible verse about love the lord your god when other loves feel loud.
Most of life is ordinary. It consists of commutes, dishes, emails and homework. The great commandment is not reserved for holy moments. Paul tells believers to do everything, whether eating or drinking, to the glory of God. The bible verse about love the lord your god applies at a desk as much as an altar.
That can change how we do small things. A task done with care, an honest effort on a school project, a kind word to a coworker can all be acts of love toward God. It gives dignity to routine work and keeps us from thinking only church counts.
Try a simple practice: before beginning a task, say silently, for you, Lord. It takes a second, and it points the work in the right direction. Over weeks it can quietly reshape the way you experience your day. The bible verse about love the lord your god sets the tone for the rest of Scripture.
One misunderstanding is that loving God requires strong emotions. The Bible speaks of love as commitment as well as feeling. You may not feel warm every day, but you can keep choosing to honor him. A bible verse about love the lord your god describes a direction of life more than a mood.
Another is that the command can be fulfilled by being generally nice. The Bible calls for a specific devotion to God himself, expressed through worship, obedience and trust. Kindness matters, but it is not a replacement for the first commandment.
A third is that the command is impossible, so we should not try. It is true that no one loves perfectly. But the Bible places the command inside a relationship of grace, where Christ fulfills what we cannot. We grow into the command, and in the meantime we are forgiven. Memorize the bible verse about love the lord your god in the version you know best.
Jesus is the one person who loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. He prayed through the night, fasted in the desert, and obeyed to the point of death. In him the bible verse about love the lord your god was lived out perfectly.
This matters because it shifts our confidence. We do not rest on our own record but on his. Christians believe that his obedience is counted for them, and that the Spirit now helps them grow in love. The command becomes a promise as well as a standard.
As we follow him, we begin to resemble him. Love for God is not manufactured by effort alone. It is a fruit of the Spirit, as Paul says in Galatians 5. We open our hands and ask, and God gives. Few lines gather as much meaning as the bible verse about love the lord your god.
You might pray: Lord, I want to love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I know that my love is small and often divided. Please grow it. Teach me to turn toward you throughout the day. Thank you for loving me first. Amen.
Pray it in your own words if that is easier. The bible verse about love the lord your god is not a script to repeat perfectly but an invitation to honest conversation. God is not looking for polished language. He is glad when we come with sincerity.
Repeat the prayer regularly, perhaps at the start of each day. Over time you will probably notice small shifts: more patience, more gratitude, more interest in God’s word. That is the work of love, and it is unhurried. When life gets busy, the bible verse about love the lord your god brings you back to the center.
Choose one verse from this page and keep it before you for seven days. Deuteronomy 6:5 is a good starting point. Write it on a card, or set it as your phone lock screen. Let the bible verse about love the lord your god be the first thing you read in the morning.
Each evening, ask yourself two questions. Where did I notice God today? Where did something else take his place? Answer honestly and without condemnation. Then thank God for his patience and ask for help tomorrow. This simple rhythm gradually reorients the heart.
By the end of the week you may find that the verse has begun to live in you. That is the aim. The great commandment is not just to be studied but to become the shape of your days, one small act of love at a time. Our love is small, but the bible verse about love the lord your god points to a great one.
The Psalms are the great workbook for the bible verse about love the lord your god. They show what the command sounds like in an actual voice. David says he will love the LORD his strength. Another writer says he loves the LORD because God heard his cry. Others sing of loving God’s law, God’s house and God’s name.
What stands out is how varied the expressions are. Some are quiet thanks, some are bold praise, and some are written from caves. Love for God does not have a single tone. It can be gentle, grateful, hungry or desperate. The Psalms give us permission to bring whichever of these we have today.
If you want to practice the great commandment, pray a psalm aloud each morning. Psalm 18, 31 and 116 are all good starting points. Let the words lend shape to your own affection, and add your own lines at the end. Share the bible verse about love the lord your god with someone who is searching.
Some people object that love cannot be commanded. Feelings, they say, come or they do not. It is a fair point, and the Bible seems to know it. The command to love God comes after a long history of God’s kindness. It is a request to respond to someone who has already earned trust.
In daily life we do something similar. We tell children to love their siblings, and we mean for them to act with kindness until the feeling grows. A bible verse about love the lord your god has a similar function. It tells us the direction in which to turn, and it promises that affection follows attention.
There is also a promise tucked in the command. Deuteronomy 30:6 says God will circumcise the heart so that we may love him. In other words, God supplies what he commands. The same hand that calls us to love also works in us to make it possible. What the bible verse about love the lord your god asks is, in the end, everything and nothing to fear.
Doubt is not the opposite of love for God. It often appears in people who care deeply about the truth. Thomas doubted and was invited to touch Jesus’ wounds. The father in Mark 9 said, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Neither was turned away.
If you struggle with doubt, you can still honor the bible verse about love the lord your god. Bring your questions to God in prayer. Keep reading and talking with others. Do the next obedient thing you do know. Love is sometimes seen best in the person who keeps showing up while unsure.
Time often helps. Many believers look back on a season of questions as the time their faith deepened. Give yourself patience, and trust that the God who commands love is gentle with those who are honestly seeking him. Think of the bible verse about love the lord your god as a compass.
To explore this great commandment further, these pages may be useful:loving God, the Ten Commandments, loving your neighbor as yourself, obedience to God, verses about the Lord, worship, love and trust, the fear of the Lord, the love of Jesus, the greatest Bible verses.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub, Bible Study Tools, Blue Letter Bible.
The main text is Deuteronomy 6:5: Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Jesus repeats it in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27, calling it the first and great commandment.
Deuteronomy lists heart, soul and might, while Matthew has heart, soul and mind. Many scholars think Jesus was using a Greek-speaking summary of the whole person. The point is that love for God includes thinking, learning and reasoning, not only feelings or effort.
It starts with gratitude, prayer and attention to Scripture, and it shows up in obedience, kindness and worship. A bible verse about love the lord your god is not a test of emotion. It describes giving God first place and letting that shape your decisions, schedule and relationships.
They are connected but not identical. John 14:15 says that if you love Jesus you will keep his commandments, so obedience grows from love. But love comes first, and 1 John 4:19 says it begins with God loving us. Obedience is the fruit rather than the root.
It is to love your neighbor as yourself, which Jesus names in Matthew 22:39 and says is like the first. Loving God and loving others are tied together. Jesus summed up the whole law and the prophets in these two commandments.
Yes. Many families begin with Deuteronomy 6:5 or 1 John 4:19, which is short and easy. Say it together at bedtime or in the car, and talk about what loving God looks like in daily life. Deuteronomy 6:7 encourages exactly this kind of everyday teaching.
