There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love.

The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.

But whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in him.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,

We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians.

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments do not weigh us down,

(See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children – and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him.

But whoever has the world’s possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God.

By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him.

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world.