And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him.

This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.

Yet now you are doing even more, Sovereign LORD; you have made promises about my descendants in the years to come. And you let a man see this, Sovereign LORD!

How wonderful are the good things you keep for those who honor you! Everyone knows how good you are, how securely you protect those who trust you.

How precious, O God, is your constant love! We find protection under the shadow of your wings.

You are the source of all life, and because of your light we see the light.

O LORD, I will always sing of your constant love; I will proclaim your faithfulness forever.

I know that your love will last for all time, that your faithfulness is as permanent as the sky.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

But God has shown us how much he loves us---it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!

Certainly not God, who did not even keep back his own Son, but offered him for us all! He gave us his Son---will he not also freely give us all things?

But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great,

that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.

so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love.

Yes, may you come to know his love---although it can never be fully known---and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

The LORD says, "Israel, I wanted to accept you as my child and give you a delightful land, the most beautiful land in all the world. I wanted you to call me father and never again turn away from me.

The people of Israel will become like the sand of the sea, more than can be counted or measured. Now God says to them, "You are not my people," but the day is coming when he will say to them, "You are the children of the living God!"

Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God's children.

Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children.

God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children.

This is what he says in the book of Hosea: "The people who were not mine I will call 'My People.' The nation that I did not love I will call 'My Beloved.'

And in the very place where they were told, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called the children of the living God."

I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

It is through faith that all of you are God's children in union with Christ Jesus.

If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.

to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might become God's children.

To show that you are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who cries out, "Father, my Father."

Those who win the victory will receive this from me: I will be their God, and they will be my children.

"If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you.

People will do these things to you because they have not known either the Father or me.

Righteous Father! The world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you sent me.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.