Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him.
- BSB Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- NKJV 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.
- NASB Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- NLT Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers must not love the world or its values, for love of the world crowds out love for the Father. The heart cannot serve both.
Overview
The 'world' here means the sinful system organized against God, not creation or people as such. To love it is incompatible with the Father's love dwelling in us. John calls for undivided devotion, warning that worldly affections and love for God are mutually exclusive. This guards the heart's true allegiance.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Jas 4:4Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
- Rom 12:2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
- Matt 6:24No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
- Col 3:1–2If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
- Luke 16:13No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
- 1 Jn 5:4–5For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
- John 15:19If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
- 1 Jn 3:17But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
- 1 Tim 6:10For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
- Gal 1:10For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
- 1 Jn 4:5They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
- Eph 2:2Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
- 1 Jn 5:10He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
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Christ at the center
Jesus is the Word of life made manifest, the propitiation for our sins, the Son in whom is eternal life — 'that you may know that you have eternal life.'
How 1 John 2:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.