How many times is love mentioned in the Bible? Exact KJV and ASV counts
How many times is love mentioned in the Bible? 311 times in the KJV as the word "love", 494 with loved and loveth. Exact KJV and ASV counts for 15+ words.
In this article
- How many times "love" appears: KJV and ASV
- Why "charity" and "lovingkindness" change the count
- Which books talk about love the most?
- The love verses behind the numbers
- How many times is X mentioned in the Bible? Counts for 15 words
- How to count any word in the Bible yourself
- Test yourself on 1 John
- Frequently asked questions
The word love appears 311 times in the King James Version, in 281 verses, by our count of the KJV text. Add the other forms of the verb (loved, loveth, lovest, lovedst, loves, loving) and the total is 494. Count "beloved" too and it reaches 607. In the American Standard Version, "love" appears 339 times. Other translations give different numbers.
That's why the answers you find online disagree: they count different words in different translations. A count only means something once you say which Bible and which words.
Below are our exact counts from the KJV and ASV texts in the Bible Academy app, the books and chapters that talk about love the most, why "charity" and "lovingkindness" change the picture, and a simple method you can use for any word, with counts for faith, grace, hope, joy, "fear not", Jesus and more.
How many times "love" appears: KJV and ASV
We counted every word in the 31,102 verses of each translation with a short script. Capital letters don't matter, and a possessive like "love's" counts as "love". Each occurrence is counted, so a verse that says "love" three times counts three times.
| Word form | KJV | ASV |
|---|---|---|
| love | 311 | 339 |
| loved | 98 | 89 |
| loveth | 65 | 74 |
| lovest | 12 | 11 |
| lovedst | 2 | 5 |
| loves | 3 | 2 |
| loving | 3 | 4 |
| Total, love as a verb or noun | 494 | 524 |
| beloved | 113 | 119 |
| lovingkindness(es) | 30 | 177 |
| lover, lovers | 27 | 30 |
| lovely | 4 | 4 |
| charity | 28 | 0 |
So, depending on what you mean:
- "How many times does the word love appear?" 311 times in the KJV.
- "How many times is love (in any form) mentioned?" 494 in the KJV, or 607 with "beloved".
- "How many verses mention love?" 281 verses contain the exact word "love" in the KJV, and 417 contain at least one of the seven core forms.
These numbers come from the app's KJV and ASV texts. A printed KJV can differ by a word here and there, and modern translations like the NIV or ESV use "love" far more often, because they translate words the KJV renders as "charity", "mercy" or "kindness" with love.
If you'd like to test what you know about the verses behind these numbers, the app's quizzes explain every answer with its verse.
Why "charity" and "lovingkindness" change the count
Two words explain most of the gap between translations.
Charity. The KJV translators often rendered the Greek agape (self-giving love) as "charity". It appears 28 times in the KJV, nine of them in 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter". The ASV, translated almost three centuries later, uses "love" in those places, and "charity" disappears from it completely. Compare:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
In the ASV, the same verse reads: "But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love." If you count "love" in the KJV and skip "charity", you miss the most famous passage on love in the Bible.
Lovingkindness. The Hebrew word hesed means loyal, covenant love: love that keeps its promises. The KJV usually translates it "mercy", sometimes "kindness" or "lovingkindness". The ASV often uses "lovingkindness". Psalm 136 shows the difference in every one of its 26 verses: the KJV refrain is "for his mercy endureth for ever", and the ASV says "for his lovingkindness endureth for ever". That's a big part of why "mercy" drops from 276 occurrences in the KJV to 116 in the ASV (not counting the ASV's hyphenated "mercy-seat"), while "lovingkindness" jumps from 30 to 177.
So when someone asks "how many times is love mentioned in the Bible", the honest answer is: more often than the word count shows. God's hesed runs through the whole Old Testament under several English names. For more on how these two translations differ, see our KJV vs ASV guide.
Which books talk about love the most?
Here are the books with the most uses of the seven core forms (love, loved, loveth, lovest, lovedst, loves, loving) in the KJV.
| Rank | Book | Love words (KJV) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | 57 |
| 2 | 1 John | 46 |
| 3 | Psalms | 42 |
| 4 | Proverbs | 33 |
| 5 | Song of Songs | 32 |
| 6 | Deuteronomy | 22 |
| 7 | Ephesians | 19 |
| 8 | Genesis, Luke, Romans | 15 each |
The Song of Songs also has the most uses of "beloved" (33 of the KJV's 113), which makes sense for a love poem.
Relative to its size, 1 John is in a class of its own: 46 love words in only 2,517 words of text. The chapter with the most is 1 John 4, with 27, followed by Psalm 119 (12), John 14 and John 15 (10 each). This is the chapter that says it twice, in verses 8 and 16:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
The phrase "God is love" appears exactly twice in the Bible, both times in 1 John 4 (verses 8 and 16). And the chapter's answer to why we love at all is short enough to memorize today:
We love him, because he first loved us.
The Old Testament and New Testament are almost even in raw numbers: 239 core love words in the Old Testament and 255 in the New in the KJV. But the New Testament is about a quarter of the length, so love words are more than three times as dense there.
The love verses behind the numbers
Counts are fun, but the point is what the verses say. A few of the most important:
- The greatest commandment comes from 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 calls it the first commandment and pairs it with Leviticus 19:18, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39).
- The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, begins "For God so loved the world".
- Peter's restoration turns on the word "lovest": three times Jesus asks, "lovest thou me?" (John 21:15-17). You can read it as a story in Lovest thou me: Peter restored.
- The love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, uses "charity" in the KJV, as we saw above.
Greek has several words for love, and the New Testament mostly uses two: agapao and phileo. English uses "love" for both, so an English count can't tell them apart. If you want to go further, a Greek concordance or an interlinear Bible will show which word stands behind each verse.
How many times is X mentioned in the Bible? Counts for 15 words
Here are our counts for other words people often ask about, using the same method (every occurrence, any capitalization, KJV and ASV texts in the app). "Fear not" is counted as a phrase.
| Word or phrase | KJV | ASV | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesus | 983 | 919 | A few refer to Joshua or to Jesus Justus (Colossians 4:11) |
| Christ | 571 | 530 | |
| faith | 247 | 249 | Only 2 in the KJV Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:20, Habakkuk 2:4) |
| hope | 130 | 136 | |
| grace | 170 | 143 | |
| mercy | 276 | 116 | ASV often uses "lovingkindness"; ASV count excludes "mercy-seat" |
| joy | 165 | 173 | |
| fear not | 62 | 68 | Plus "be not afraid": 28 in the KJV |
| pray | 313 | 314 | |
| prayer | 114 | 102 | |
| heaven | 583 | 533 | |
| holy | 611 | 629 | |
| salvation | 164 | 163 | |
| amen | 78 | 60 | |
| charity | 28 | 0 | ASV uses "love" |
A few observations. "Faith" is almost entirely a New Testament word in the KJV; the Old Testament usually speaks of trust and faithfulness instead. "Fear not" and "be not afraid" together appear 90 times in the KJV. And "Jesus" isn't always Jesus of Nazareth: in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, the KJV uses "Jesus" for Joshua, the Greek form of the same name. Our article on the most mentioned person in the Bible goes into names in detail.
How to count any word in the Bible yourself
You can check our numbers, or count any word, with a free online Bible search. Here's a method that gives answers you can trust.
- Pick one translation and say so. "Love appears 311 times" is only true for the KJV. Mixing translations is the most common mistake in articles on this topic.
- Decide which forms count. Only "love"? Or loved, loving, loveth, beloved? Write your list down before you start.
- Decide occurrences or verses. A search tool usually reports the number of verses that match. A verse with "love" three times counts once there, but three times in an occurrence count. 1 John 4:7 alone has four love words, counting "beloved".
- Search exact words. In a tool like Bible Gateway's KJV search, check whether it matches whole words or also "beloved" and "lovely".
- Read some of the results. Context matters: "lover" in Hosea means something different from "love" in 1 John.
For deeper word studies, a concordance (such as Strong's for the KJV) lists every occurrence and the Hebrew or Greek word behind it. The Blue Letter Bible offers one free.
If you'd rather learn the verses than count them, the app's memory verses feature lets you save verses like 1 John 4:19 and come back to review them.
Test yourself on 1 John
Here are three questions from the app's 1 John quiz, the letter with the densest use of the word "love":
Quick quiz: 1 John
What “message” does John declare at the beginning of his letter (1:5)?
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5
What does God do if we confess our sins?
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
Which statement about God does John repeat twice in chapter 4?
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love”; and further on: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” 1 John 4:8–16
There are many more questions like these in Bible Academy, each with its explanation and verse. Start free, no card needed.
There's a full 1 John quiz and a John quiz, and the Bible quiz hub has one for every book. For more trivia with explained answers, see our Bible trivia questions and answers.
Frequently asked questions
How many times is love mentioned in the Bible?
In the King James Version, the word "love" appears 311 times, in 281 verses. Including loved, loveth, lovest, lovedst, loves and loving, the total is 494, and with "beloved" it is 607. In the American Standard Version, "love" appears 339 times. Counts differ between translations because they render the Hebrew and Greek words differently.
How many times does the word love appear in the KJV?
By our count of the KJV text, the exact word "love" appears 311 times, including one possessive "love's". It appears in 281 different verses. The KJV also uses "charity" 28 times for the Greek word agape, including nine times in 1 Corinthians 13, so the concept of love appears more often than the word.
Where does the Bible say "God is love"?
The phrase "God is love" appears twice in the Bible, both in 1 John 4: in verse 8 ("He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love") and verse 16 ("God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him"). 1 John 4 uses love words 27 times, more than any other chapter.
Which book of the Bible mentions love the most?
The Gospel of John uses love words (love, loved, loveth and similar) 57 times in the KJV, the most of any book. 1 John is second with 46, then Psalms with 42. Relative to its length, 1 John has by far the highest concentration, and its fourth chapter alone has 27.
How many times is faith mentioned in the Bible?
The word "faith" appears 247 times in the KJV and 249 times in the ASV, by our count. Almost all of them are in the New Testament: the KJV Old Testament uses "faith" only twice, preferring words like trust and faithfulness. Hebrews 11, the "faith chapter", is the most famous passage on the subject.