Bible verses about loving your neighbor trace a command that runs from the law of Moses to the teaching of Jesus and the letters of the apostles. Scripture ties love for God and love for people closely together, and it widens the idea of neighbour to include strangers, the poor and even those we might avoid. These passages explain what that love means and why it sits so close to the heart of faith.
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:18 (KJV)
The command to love your neighbour as yourself first appears here, alongside a ban on revenge and grudges.
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. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22:37-40 (KJV)
Jesus names loving God and loving neighbour as the two commandments on which all the law hangs.
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)
A lawyer sums up the law as loving God fully and your neighbour as yourself, and Jesus agrees.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Luke 10:33-35 (KJV)
In Jesus’ parable, a Samaritan stops, treats the wounded man and pays for his care.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Luke 10:36-37 (KJV)
Jesus turns the question around: the true neighbour is the one who shows mercy, so go and do likewise.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:31 (KJV)
Jesus says no commandment is greater than loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.
For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans 13:9-10 (KJV)
Paul explains that every command about how we treat people is summed up in loving our neighbour.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Galatians 5:14 (KJV)
The whole law is fulfilled in one word: love your neighbour as yourself.
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
James 2:8 (KJV)
James calls loving your neighbour the royal law of Scripture.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:12 (KJV)
The golden rule teaches us to treat others the way we would want to be treated.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:34 (KJV)
God tells Israel to love the stranger living among them as themselves, remembering they were once strangers.
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 (KJV)
Because God cares for the fatherless, the widow and the stranger, His people must love the stranger too.
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
Zechariah 7:9-10 (KJV)
The prophet calls for justice, mercy and compassion, and forbids oppressing the widow, orphan, stranger or poor.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
1 John 4:20-21 (KJV)
John teaches that anyone who claims to love God must also love his brother.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee. Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
Proverbs 3:27-29 (KJV)
Do not hold back good from those who need it or plot harm against a neighbour who trusts you.
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Micah 6:8 (KJV)
God asks His people to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Him.
Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.
Romans 15:2 (KJV)
Each of us should seek our neighbour’s good and help build them up.
The command to love your neighbour as yourself first appears in Leviticus 19:18, in a passage that also forbids revenge and holding grudges. Jesus later joined it to the greatest commandment, loving God with all your heart, soul and mind, and said that all the law and the prophets hang on these two (Matthew 22:37-40). Paul and James repeat the same idea, calling neighbour love the fulfilment of the law and the royal law.
When a lawyer asked Jesus, who is my neighbour, Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. A priest and a Levite pass by a wounded man, but a Samaritan, someone the listeners would have looked down on, stops to help and pays for his care. Jesus then asks which of the three proved to be a neighbour, shifting the question from whom we must love to how we can show mercy.
Scripture also gives neighbour love a practical shape. The Old Testament repeatedly calls God’s people to care for widows, orphans, strangers and the poor, and the New Testament links love for God with love for the people we can see (1 John 4:20-21). Loving your neighbour is not a feeling to wait for but a way of acting toward whoever is in front of you.
Matthew 22:39’s instruction to “love thy neighbour as thyself” is named directly alongside loving God as the two commandments the entire law hangs on.
This subject overlaps with Bible Verses For Unconditional Love and with Bible Verses For Depression.
The verses on this page come from the King James Version; the complete text is freely available at Blue Letter Bible.
Some of the same ground is covered in Bible Verses About Blessings and Bible Verses About Encouragement.
If you want to keep reading, Bible Verses About Gratitude and Thankfulness and Bible Verses About Strength and Courage sit close to this topic.
Bible Verses About Prayer in Difficult Times and Bible Verses About Growing in Faith are good companions to this page.
Two nearby collections worth opening next are Bible Verses About Loving Your Enemies and Bible Verses For Loving Your Neighbor.
Bible Gateway makes it easy to compare a verse across several English translations.
Bible Hub offers commentary and cross-references for each verse.
Loving your neighbor is treated in Scripture as inseparable from loving God, not a secondary or optional command.
These verses were never meant to sit on a page as decoration \u2014 they’re meant to shape how you actually respond the next time it’s easier to love people from a distance than the person actually next door.
You don’t need polished or formal language for it \u2014 an honest, plainly worded sentence is enough, something as simple as telling God directly for the willingness to love the specific people right in front of you.
Most people know the line love thy neighbour as thyself, but few read the chapter around it. Leviticus 19 surrounds that command with plain, everyday instructions. Farmers were not to reap the corners of their fields or gather every fallen grape, so the poor and the stranger could glean (Leviticus 19:9-10). A hired worker’s wages were not to be held back overnight (19:13). No one was to curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind (19:14). Judges were not to favour the poor or honour the mighty, but to judge their neighbour fairly (19:15).
The chapter also forbids going up and down as a talebearer (19:16) and hating a brother in your heart (19:17). Only after all of this does verse 18 name the principle that holds it together. Read in their setting, the Bible verses about loving your neighbor are not a vague mood of goodwill. They reach into how you pay people, how you talk about someone who is not in the room, and how you treat a person who cannot see or hear what you are doing.
Leviticus 19 is a good place to begin, because it breaks one large command into small acts anyone can practise this week: settle what you owe on time, leave something for others, refuse to pass on gossip, and treat people the same whatever their standing. Among these Bible verses about loving your neighbor, the Leviticus passage is the one that most clearly shows love as a set of daily habits rather than a single grand gesture. Quiet habits like these slowly change the feel of a street, an office or a church.
The book of Ruth shows the gleaning law of Leviticus 19 lived out by real people. Ruth was a Moabite widow, a foreigner in Bethlehem, who went into the fields to gather grain for herself and her mother-in-law Naomi. She came to the part of the field that belonged to Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s late husband (Ruth 2:1-3).
Boaz did far more than the law required. He told Ruth to stay in his field, charged his young men not to touch her, and let her drink from the water they had drawn (Ruth 2:8-9). At mealtime he handed her parched corn until she was satisfied, then quietly told his reapers to let some handfuls fall on purpose for her (Ruth 2:14-16). Ruth had already asked why she had found grace in his eyes, seeing she was a stranger (Ruth 2:10).
Boaz shows how the passages here move from duty toward generosity. The law said leave the corners; love left extra grain and guarded Ruth’s dignity while doing it. He later redeemed the family land and married Ruth, and she became the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:13-17). Matthew even names her in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).
What Boaz models for us:
Set beside the Good Samaritan, the story of Boaz shows that Bible verses about loving your neighbor are not only about emergencies on the road. They also speak to the steady, unseen kindness of someone with resources choosing to share them well, season after season.
Because the command is so familiar, it is easy to bend it into something it does not say. Reading the verses on this page slowly and in context clears up several common mistakes.
The command assumes that people already look after their own needs. Paul makes the same assumption when he writes that no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it (Ephesians 5:29). The phrase as thyself sets the measure for how we treat others; it is not a separate instruction to build self-esteem before we can obey. Among the Bible verses about loving your neighbor, none tells us to wait until we feel good about ourselves before we help someone.
Leviticus 19:34 applies the same words, love him as thyself, to the stranger living in the land. Jesus chose a Samaritan as the hero of His parable precisely because His listeners would not have counted him as one of their own. Scripture keeps widening the circle, and the this collection never draw a line around race, class or nation.
Leviticus 19:17 says, Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Honest, gentle correction can itself be an act of love, and it sits comfortably beside the other Bible verses about loving your neighbor. Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6).
John reverses that order: We love him, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Love for neighbours is the fruit of grace already received, not the price of it. Read the verses as a response to God’s kindness and they become an invitation rather than a burden.
These questions help a group, a family or a single reader move from reading Bible verses about loving your neighbor to practising them. Read Leviticus 19:9-18 and Luke 10:25-37 aloud first, then take the questions slowly. There are no trick answers; the goal is honest conversation.
Close by choosing one specific person and one specific action for the coming week, and share how it went when you meet again. To carry the discussion further, the collection of Bible verses about loving your enemies pushes the same command to its hardest edge, and the wider set of Bible verses about loving others gathers related passages from across Scripture.
Whatever your group discovers, the passages here keep pointing to the same place: a real person, close at hand, who needs the same care you would want for yourself.
Jesus told the story of the Samaritan in answer to a lawyer who wanted a clean boundary. The man had just agreed that the whole law comes down to loving God and loving your neighbour, and then he asked the question lawyers always ask: and who is my neighbour? He wanted a list. Jesus gave him a road instead. The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho drops more than three thousand feet over roughly seventeen miles, cuts through bare rock and desert, and had a reputation for ambushes. Everyone listening knew it. A traveller is beaten, stripped and left half dead in the ditch, and two respectable men, a priest and a Levite, see him and keep to the far side of the road.
Then comes the detail that would have stung the crowd. The one who stops is a Samaritan, a man from a people the Jews of that day avoided. He kneels, pours oil and wine on the wounds, lifts the stranger onto his own animal, and leaves two silver coins with an innkeeper along with a promise to cover whatever else it costs. Luke 10:36-37 records how Jesus turned the lawyer’s question around: “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” Notice the shift. The lawyer asked whom he had to love. Jesus asked who acted like a neighbour. The first question measures limits. The second takes them away.
The word behind neighbour in Leviticus 19:18 is rea, and it simply means someone near you, a companion, a person you keep running into. It fits the man whose field borders yours and the worker in the next row. It isn’t a technical term for relatives or for friends you’ve chosen. That ordinary quality matters, because it means the command lands on the people closest to you whether or not you like them. Nearness, not affection, is what makes someone your neighbour.
Yet the same chapter stretches the circle. Sixteen verses later, Leviticus 19:34 says, “But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Israel was told to remember what it felt like to be the outsider in a foreign country, and to let that memory shape how newcomers were treated. So the Old Testament already holds both ends together, the person at the fence line and the foreigner at the gate. When Jesus answered the lawyer with a Samaritan, he wasn’t inventing a wider circle. He was pointing back to one the law had drawn all along.
There is a cheap version of neighbour love that costs nothing but a pleasant mood. You wave, you say the right words, you feel decent about yourself. John wrote against that version. In 1 John 3:18 he says, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” Words aren’t forbidden there. They just aren’t enough on their own.
Think about what deeds look like on an ordinary street. A woman three doors down comes home from surgery and nobody has thought about her dinners. A teenager across the road is hauling a mower that won’t start. An older man hasn’t been seen at his window for two days. None of this needs a speech. It needs an hour, a casserole dish, a knock on the door. The Samaritan spent oil, wine, travel time and coins. Real neighbour love usually comes with a bill attached, even if the bill is only one inconvenient Tuesday evening.
That said, nobody is asked to carry the whole street alone. Galatians 6:2 talks about people bearing one another’s burdens, which is group language. A church, a block or a family can divide the load. Giving until you collapse helps no one, least of all the person who needed you to still be standing next week.
Nobody picks the people next door. You get the man whose dog barks at six in the morning, the family with the truck parked half on your grass, the woman who corrects your parenting from her porch. Romans 13:10 was written for exactly these people: “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Paul states it in negative terms, and that is useful. Before you can do a neighbour much good, you can at least refuse to do them harm. No gossip over the fence. No petty revenge with the bins. No slow campaign of complaints to the council.
A few plain habits help. Start with a greeting, not a grievance. Learn the name and one thing about their week. When something really does need raising, like a boundary or a noise problem, speak to them directly and calmly before anyone else hears about it. Jesus gave a similar order of steps about private conversation in Matthew 18:15. And pray for them by name, even if the prayer starts as a gritted-teeth one-liner. Something odd tends to happen to a person you pray for regularly. They get harder to resent.
One honest caution: loving a neighbour does not mean putting up with abuse or ignoring real danger. If someone threatens you or your family, calling the authorities or a trusted leader is not unloving. Love and wisdom travel together.
James 2:8 calls this command the royal law: “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well.” Royal, because it comes from the King and applies in every house on the block, not only in church. Maybe the simplest way to take it home is to pray it down the street, one door at a time.
Lord, you know the names behind each of these windows, and I know too few of them. Show me who is lonely behind the curtains tonight. Give me a nudge when someone needs a lift, a meal or just a conversation, and give me the nerve to act on it before the moment passes. Forgive me for the times I saw a need and told myself somebody else would handle it. Soften my heart toward the one I find hardest to like. Teach me to love in deed and not only in intention. Let the people who live around me find this house a safe and steady place. Amen.
Readers interested in this topic often continue with Bible Verses For Loving Your Neighbor, Bible Verses For Loving Others, Bible Verses For Loving Your Enemies, Bible Verses About Loving Your Enemies and Bible Verses About Loving Others.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
The command to love your neighbour as yourself first appears in Leviticus 19:18, in a passage that also forbids revenge and holding grudges.
This page brings together 15 King James Version references about loving Your Neighbor, drawn from 7 different books of the Bible.
These loving Your Neighbor verses are drawn from books including Leviticus, Matthew, 1 John, Ruth, Ephesians, among others.
Yes. The verses about loving Your Neighbor gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:37.
Leviticus 19:18 is one of the verses about loving Your Neighbor referenced in this collection, alongside Matthew 22:37.
