ἀγαπάω
to love
‘to love’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-tense verb in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G25 appears in the Book of 1 John — 17 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
1 John
- 1 John 2:10 ἀγαπῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc He who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no occasion for stumbling in him.
- 1 John 2:15 ἀγαπᾶτε ἀγαπᾷ pres act impv 2pl pres act subj 3sg Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him.
- 1 John 3:10 ἀγαπῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
- 1 John 3:11 ἀγαπῶμεν pres act subj 1pl For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
- 1 John 3:14 ἀγαπῶμεν ἀγαπῶν pres act ind 1pl pres act ptcp nom sg masc We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn't love his brother remains in death.
- 1 John 3:18 ἀγαπῶμεν pres act subj 1pl My little children, let's not love in word only, neither with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.
- 1 John 3:23 ἀγαπῶμεν pres act subj 1pl This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded.
- 1 John 4:7 ἀγαπῶμεν ἀγαπῶν pres act subj 1pl pres act ptcp nom sg masc Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God.
- 1 John 4:8 ἀγαπῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.
- 1 John 4:10 ἠγαπήσαμεν ἠγάπησεν aor act ind 1pl aor act ind 3sg In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
- 1 John 4:11 ἠγάπησεν ἀγαπᾶν aor act ind 3sg pres act inf Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
- 1 John 4:12 ἀγαπῶμεν pres act subj 1pl No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
- 1 John 4:19 ἀγαπῶμεν ἠγάπησεν pres act ind 1pl aor act ind 3sg We love Him, because he first loved us.
- 1 John 4:20 ἀγαπῶ ἀγαπῶν ἀγαπᾶν pres act ind 1sg pres act ptcp nom sg masc pres act inf If a man says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
- 1 John 4:21 ἀγαπῶν ἀγαπᾷ pres act ptcp nom sg masc pres act subj 3sg This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
- 1 John 5:1 ἀγαπῶν ἀγαπᾷ pres act ptcp nom sg masc pres act ind 3sg Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Whoever loves the father also loves the child who is born of him.
- 1 John 5:2 ἀγαπῶμεν ἀγαπῶμεν pres act ind 1pl pres act subj 1pl By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“to love” is the headline sense of the Greek verb αγαπαω (agapáō). First canonically at Matthew 5:43, it enters the text early. It appears 110 verses across 22 books of the Greek New Testament, among its common vocabulary. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in John. Lexicons map it across 2 senses. See the sense tree, 110-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G25 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 110
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 110 distinct verses.
- 22 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 22 of 27 New Testament books.
- #115
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 115 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 110 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 110 distinct verses.
- Johannine 51 verses · 46%
- Gospels 47 verses · 43%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 29 verses · 26%
- Pauline corpus 28 verses · 25%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 9 verses · 8%
- Revelation 4 verses · 4%
- Hebrews 2 verses · 2%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Love 37×, Loved 17×, Thou shalt love 10×
- American Standard Version: Love 36×, Loved 17×, Loveth 13×
- Berean Standard Bible: Love 43×, Loves 18×, Loved 17×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Love 27×, Loving 23×, Loved 19×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G25 across 147 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 22 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G25 across 144 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 20 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G25 across 141 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 15 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G25 across 149 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 22 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly
- to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing
Word origin
Derived from φιλεω (philéō) (G5368) — to love.
Forms in the corpus
The 39 distinct written forms G25 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G25, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αγαπαω appears 210 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 198 verses in 29 books.
- 210
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 198
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 29 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 29 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 22:2 ἀγαπάω
- Exodus 20:6 ἀγαπάω
- Leviticus 19:18 ἀγαπάω
- Deuteronomy 4:37 ἀγαπάω
- Joshua 22:5 ἀγαπάω
- Judges 5:31 ἀγαπάω
- Ruth 4:15 ἀγαπάω
- 1 Samuel 1:5 ἀγαπάω
- 2 Samuel 1:23 ἀγαπάω
- 1 Kings 3:3 ἀγαπάω
- 1 Chronicles 17:16 ἀγαπάω
- 2 Chronicles 2:10 ἀγαπάω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G25) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 198. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 22:2 ἀγαπάω He said, "Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of."
- Genesis 24:67 ἀγαπάω Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
- Genesis 25:28 ἀγαπάω Now Isaac loved Esau, because he ate his venison. Rebekah loved Jacob.
- Genesis 29:18 ἀγαπάω Jacob loved Rachel. He said, "I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter."
- Genesis 29:20 ἀγαπάω Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.
- Genesis 29:30 ἀγαπάω He went in also to Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.
- Genesis 29:32 ἀγαπάω Leah conceived, and bore a son, and she named him Reuben. For she said, "Because Yahweh has looked at my affliction. For now my husband will love me."
- Genesis 34:3 ἀγαπάω His soul joined to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady.
- Genesis 37:3 ἀγαπάω Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors.
- Genesis 44:20 ἀγαπάω We said to my lord, 'We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loves him.'
- Exodus 20:6 ἀγαπάω and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
- Leviticus 19:18 ἀγαπάω You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.
- Leviticus 19:34 ἀγαπάω The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
- Deuteronomy 4:37 ἀγαπάω Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
- Deuteronomy 5:10 ἀγαπάω and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
- Deuteronomy 6:5 ἀγαπάω and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
- Deuteronomy 7:8 ἀγαπάω but because Yahweh loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, has Yahweh brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
- Deuteronomy 7:9 ἀγαπάω Know therefore that Yahweh your God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,
- Deuteronomy 7:13 ἀγαπάω and he will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you.
- Deuteronomy 10:12 ἀγαπάω Now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
- Deuteronomy 10:15 ἀγαπάω Only Yahweh had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as at this day.
- Deuteronomy 10:18 ἀγαπάω He does execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the foreigner, in giving him food and clothing.
- Deuteronomy 10:19 ἀγαπάω Therefore love the foreigner; for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
- Deuteronomy 11:1 ἀγαπάω Therefore you shall love Yahweh your God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his ordinances, and his commandments, always.
- Deuteronomy 11:13 ἀγαπάω It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love Yahweh your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
- Deuteronomy 11:22 ἀγαπάω For if you shall diligently keep all this commandment which I command you, to do it, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave to him;
- Deuteronomy 13:4 ἀγαπάω You shall walk after Yahweh your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and you shall serve him, and cleave to him.
- Deuteronomy 15:16 ἀγαπάω It shall be, if he tell you, I will not go out from you; because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you;
- Deuteronomy 19:9 ἀγαπάω if you shall keep all this commandment to do it, which I command you this day, to love Yahweh your God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shall you add three cities more for you, besides these three:
- Deuteronomy 21:15 ἀγαπάω If a man have two wives, the one beloved, and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers who was hated;
- Deuteronomy 21:16 ἀγαπάω then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not make the son of the beloved the firstborn before the son of the hated, who is the firstborn:
- Deuteronomy 23:6 ἀγαπάω You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.
- Deuteronomy 30:6 ἀγαπάω Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live.
- Deuteronomy 30:16 ἀγαπάω in that I command you this day to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that Yahweh your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it.
- Deuteronomy 30:20 ἀγαπάω to love Yahweh your God, to obey his voice, and to cleave to him; for he is your life, and the length of your days; that you may dwell in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
- Deuteronomy 32:15 ἀγαπάω But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: You have grown fat, you are grown thick, you are become sleek; Then he forsook God who made him, Lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
- Deuteronomy 33:5 ἀγαπάω He was king in Jeshurun, When the heads of the people were gathered, All the tribes of Israel together.
- Deuteronomy 33:12 ἀγαπάω Of Benjamin he said, The beloved of Yahweh shall dwell in safety by him; He covers him all the day long, He dwells between his shoulders.
- Deuteronomy 33:26 ἀγαπάω There is none like God, Jeshurun, Who rides on the heavens for your help, In his excellency on the skies.
- Joshua 22:5 ἀγαπάω Only take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, to love Yahweh your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Joshua 23:11 ἀγαπάω Take good heed therefore to yourselves, that you love Yahweh your God.
- Judges 5:31 ἀγαπάω So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh: But let those who love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might. The land had rest forty years.
- Judges 14:16 ἀγαπάω Samson's wife wept before him, and said, You do but hate me, and don't love me: you have put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and haven't told it me. He said to her, Behold, I haven't told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?
- Judges 16:4 ἀγαπάω It came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
- Judges 16:15 ἀγαπάω She said to him, How can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me? you have mocked me these three times, and have not told me in which your great strength lies.
- Ruth 4:15 ἀγαπάω He shall be to you a restorer of life, and sustain you in your old age, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.
- 1 Samuel 1:5 ἀγαπάω but to Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, but Yahweh had shut up her womb.
- 1 Samuel 16:21 ἀγαπάω David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armor bearer.
- 1 Samuel 18:9 ἀγαπάω Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
- 1 Samuel 18:10 ἀγαπάω It happened on the next day, that an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand;
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G25) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
