πιστεύω
to believe
‘to believe’ 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).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Pluperfect
- A past action completed before another past point (“had written”).
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).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
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 G4100 appears in the Book of 1 John — 7 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 3:23 πιστεύσωμεν aor 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 4:1 πιστεύετε pres act impv 2pl Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
- 1 John 4:16 πεπιστεύκαμεν perf act ind 1pl We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
- 1 John 5:1 πιστεύων pres act ptcp nom sg masc 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 5:5 πιστεύων pres act ptcp nom sg masc Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
- 1 John 5:10 πιστεύων πιστεύων πεπίστευκεν pres act ptcp nom sg masc pres act ptcp nom sg masc perf act ind 3sg He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn't believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son.
- 1 John 5:13 πιστεύουσιν pres act ptcp dat pl masc These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
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.
πιστευω — transliterated pisteúō — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to believe.” The King James Version also renders it “believeth,” a usage modern versions have dropped for “believe” — see the renderings breakdown. It appears 217 verses across 21 books of the Greek New Testament, among its common vocabulary. More than a third of its appearances fall in John. Thayer's distinguishes 2 senses for it. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4100 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 →
- 217
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 217 distinct verses.
- 21 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 21 of 27 New Testament books.
- #66
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Greek words (rank 66 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 217 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 217 distinct verses.
- Gospels 117 verses · 54%
- Johannine 92 verses · 42%
- Pauline corpus 50 verses · 23%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 44 verses · 20%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 13 verses · 6%
- Hebrews 2 verses · 1%
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: Believe 69×, Believed 44×, Believeth 17×
- American Standard Version: Believe 59×, Believed 42×, Believeth 19×
- Berean Standard Bible: Believe 56×, Believed 32×, Believes 29×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Believe 62×, Believing 52×, Believed 32×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4100 across 264 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 50 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 G4100 across 265 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 67 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 1 further occurrence.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4100 across 240 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 39 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4100 across 288 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 40 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 think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in
- to entrust a thing to one, i.e. his fidelity
Word origin
Derived from πιστις (pístis) (G4102) — faith.
From G4102 ; to have faith (in upon or with respect to a person or thing) that is credit ; by implication to entrust (especially one´ s spiritual well being to christ): - believe (-r) commit (to trust) put in trust with.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 61 distinct written forms G4100 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 1 rarer form follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4100, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πιστευω appears 47 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 46 verses in 14 books.
- 47
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 46
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 15:6 πιστεύω
- Exodus 4:1 πιστεύω
- Numbers 14:11 πιστεύω
- Deuteronomy 9:23 πιστεύω
- 1 Samuel 3:21 πιστεύω
- 1 Kings 10:7 πιστεύω
- 2 Chronicles 9:6 πιστεύω
- Job 4:18 πιστεύω
- Psalms 26:13 πιστεύω
- Proverbs 14:15 πιστεύω
- Isaiah 7:9 πιστεύω
- Jeremiah 12:6 πιστεύω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4100) appears in the Greek Septuagint. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 15:6 πιστεύω He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.
- Genesis 42:20 πιστεύω Bring your youngest brother to me; so will your words be verified, and you won't die." They did so.
- Genesis 45:26 πιστεύω They told him, saying, "Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." His heart fainted, for he didn't believe them.
- Exodus 4:1 πιστεύω Moses answered, "But, behold, they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice; for they will say, 'Yahweh has not appeared to you.'"
- Exodus 4:5 πιστεύω "That they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."
- Exodus 4:8 πιστεύω "It will happen, if they will neither believe you nor listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.
- Exodus 4:9 πιστεύω It will happen, if they will not believe even these two signs, neither listen to your voice, that you shall take of the water of the river, and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take out of the river will become blood on the dry land."
- Exodus 4:31 πιστεύω The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.
- Exodus 14:31 πιστεύω Israel saw the great work which Yahweh did to the Egyptians, and the people feared Yahweh; and they believed in Yahweh, and in his servant Moses.
- Exodus 19:9 πιστεύω Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever." Moses told the words of the people to Yahweh.
- Numbers 14:11 πιστεύω Yahweh said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?
- Numbers 20:12 πιστεύω Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, Because you didn't believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.
- Deuteronomy 9:23 πιστεύω When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn't believe him, nor listen to his voice.
- Deuteronomy 28:66 πιστεύω and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life.
- 1 Samuel 3:21 πιστεύω Yahweh appeared again in Shiloh; for Yahweh revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of Yahweh.
- 1 Samuel 27:12 πιστεύω Achish believed David, saying, He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant forever.
- 1 Kings 10:7 πιστεύω However I didn't believe the words, until I came, and my eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me; your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame which I heard.
- 2 Chronicles 9:6 πιστεύω However I didn't believe their words, until I came, and my eyes had seen it; and, behold, the half of the greatness of your wisdom was not told me: you exceed the fame that I heard.
- 2 Chronicles 32:15 πιστεύω Now therefore don't let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you after this manner, neither believe you him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
- Job 4:18 πιστεύω Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.
- Job 9:16 πιστεύω If I had called, and he had answered me, Yet would I not believe that he listened to my voice.
- Job 15:15 πιστεύω Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones; Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight:
- Job 15:22 πιστεύω He doesn't believe that he shall return out of darkness, He is waited for by the sword.
- Job 15:31 πιστεύω Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; For emptiness shall be his reward.
- Job 24:22 πιστεύω Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life.
- Job 29:24 πιστεύω I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn't reject the light of my face.
- Job 39:12 πιστεύω Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, And gather the grain of your threshing floor?
- Job 39:24 πιστεύω He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, Neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
- Psalms 26:13 πιστεύω
- Psalms 77:22 πιστεύω
- Psalms 77:32 πιστεύω
- Psalms 105:12 πιστεύω When they were but a few men in number, Yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
- Psalms 105:24 πιστεύω He increased his people greatly, And made them stronger than their adversaries.
- Psalms 115:1 πιστεύω Not to us, Yahweh, not to us, But to your name give glory, For your loving kindness, and for your truth's sake.
- Psalms 118:66 πιστεύω
- Proverbs 14:15 πιστεύω A simple man believes everything, But the prudent man carefully considers his ways.
- Proverbs 30:1 πιστεύω The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle: The man says to Ithiel, To Ithiel and Ucal:
- Isaiah 7:9 πιστεύω and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.'"
- Isaiah 28:16 πιστεύω therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner -[stone] of sure foundation: he who believes shall not be in haste.
- Isaiah 43:10 πιστεύω You are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
- Isaiah 53:1 πιστεύω Who has believed our message? and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?
- Jeremiah 12:6 πιστεύω For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; even they have cried aloud after you: don't believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you.
- Jeremiah 25:8 πιστεύω Therefore thus says Yahweh of Hosts: Because you have not heard my words,
- Jeremiah 47:14 πιστεύω
- Lamentations 4:12 πιστεύω The kings of the earth didn't believe, neither all the inhabitants of the world, That the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.
- Habakkuk 1:5 πιστεύω "Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4100) 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.
