Forgiving and Love Your Enemies! 

  

Romans 12:17-21 ESV / 292 helpful votes

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Matthew 5:44 ESV / 178 helpful votes

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Ephesians 4:32 ESV / 168 helpful votes

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV / 151 helpful votes

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Luke 6:27 ESV / 124 helpful votes

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

John 15:12 ESV / 108 helpful votes

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Mark 11:25 ESV / 103 helpful votes

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Matthew 6:14-15 ESV / 89 helpful votes

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 5:43-48 ESV / 87 helpful votes

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ...

Ephesians 4:26-27 ESV / 70 helpful votes

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.

Matthew 18:21-22 ESV / 67 helpful votes

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Matthew 18:15 ESV / 65 helpful votes

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

Ephesians 4:31 ESV / 57 helpful votes

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Proverbs 19:11 ESV / 51 helpful votes

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

Luke 23:34 ESV / 50 helpful votes

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 47 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Colossians 3:12-14 ESV / 46 helpful votes

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Luke 17:3-4 ESV / 46 helpful votes

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Luke 17:4 ESV / 42 helpful votes

And if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Matthew 6:12 ESV / 42 helpful votes

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Proverbs 10:12 ESV / 42 helpful votes

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Romans 12:19 ESV / 40 helpful votes

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Matthew 6:14 ESV / 38 helpful votes

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

Proverbs 16:32 ESV / 38 helpful votes

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Colossians 3:13 ESV / 37 helpful votes

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 33 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

Proverbs 3:5 ESV / 28 helpful votes

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Luke 17:3 ESV / 27 helpful votes

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,

Matthew 18:21-35 ESV / 27 helpful votes

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ...

Matthew 6:1-34 ESV / 27 helpful votes

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ...

Romans 1:1-32 ESV / 25 helpful votes

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ...

Luke 6:31 ESV / 25 helpful votes

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Proverbs 3:6 ESV / 22 helpful votes

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Ephesians 4:29 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

John 13:34-35 ESV / 20 helpful votes

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 19 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Romans 14:19 ESV / 19 helpful votes

So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Colossians 3:19 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Galatians 5:13 ESV / 18 helpful votes

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Luke 14:8-11 ESV / 18 helpful votes

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 11:4 ESV / 18 helpful votes

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

Ephesians 6:1 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Acts 17:28 ESV / 16 helpful votes

For “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

1 Peter 3:7 ESV / 15 helpful votes

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 15 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Isaiah 43:17 ESV / 15 helpful votes

Who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 14 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

James 4:5 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

Proverbs 16:7 ESV / 12 helpful votes

When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

1 John 4:8 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

2 Timothy 3:17 ESV / 11 helpful votes

That the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

John 10:34 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?

Genesis 39:1-2 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

Luke 10:25-35 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ...

Isaiah 1:1-31 ESV / 9 helpful votes

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ...

Luke 10:36 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”

John 6:60-69 ESV / 5 helpful votes

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) ...

Romans 12:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Mark 9:50 ESV / 4 helpful votes  

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

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Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com. Cite this page: Editor: Stephen Smith. Publication date: Feb 10, 2016. Publisher: OpenBible.info.