{"id":117356,"date":"2026-10-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117356"},"modified":"2026-09-29T22:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:09:30","slug":"jesus-loves-me-lyrics-meaning-and-the-novel-it-was-written-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/jesus-loves-me-lyrics-meaning-and-the-novel-it-was-written-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Loves Me: Lyrics, Meaning, and the Novel It Was Written For"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>7 Minute, 23 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

Most people learn Jesus Loves Me<\/em> before they can read, and assume it was written for a Sunday school. It was written for a novel. In the story a young teacher carries a dying boy around a room and, when the child asks him to sing, sings these words. This page has the lyrics as Anna Warner first wrote them, the verse that is almost always left out, and how a poem from a novel picked up its chorus and its tune two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen: Jesus Loves Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=idpphjHrAa4\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jesus Loves Me — Full Lyrics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Verse 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jesus loves me! This I know,
\nFor the Bible tells me so;
\nLittle ones to Him belong;
\nThey are weak, but He is strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chorus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nThe Bible tells me so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verse 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jesus loves me! He who died
\nHeaven's gate to open wide;
\nHe will wash away my sin,
\nLet His little child come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chorus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nThe Bible tells me so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verse 3<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jesus loves me! He will stay
\nClose beside me all the way;
\nThen His little child will take
\nUp to heaven for His dear sake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chorus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nYes, Jesus loves me!
\nThe Bible tells me so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A song from a novel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anna Bartlett Warner and her older sister Susan wrote novels for a living. Susan’s The Wide, Wide World<\/em> (1850) had been one of the best-selling American books of its decade, and in 1860 the two of them published Say and Seal<\/em>, a two-volume story set in a small village. The poem that became Jesus Loves Me<\/em> is in the second volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scene is quiet. A little boy named Johnny Fax is very ill. His Sunday school teacher, Mr. Linden, has been sitting up with him, and when the child grows restless he picks him up and walks him slowly around the room. After a while Johnny says one word: Sing.<\/em> Mr. Linden keeps walking and sings four short verses, so softly that the woman sitting in the room has to listen for them. The first is the one everyone knows: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the song was not written to teach children a doctrine. It was written as the thing an adult would sing to a child who was dying, which is why every line is short, plain and certain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The verse that gets left out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warner wrote four verses. The third is the one hymnals almost always drop:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus loves me, loves me still, though I’m very weak and ill; from His shining throne on high comes to watch me where I lie.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the novel that verse is about Johnny, who is lying in bed too sick to sit up. Outside that room it reads as oddly specific, which is why it fell away once the song left the book. The fourth verse was also written for him. Warner ended it then His little child will take up to heaven for His dear sake<\/em>, and the lyrics on this page keep her wording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you learned different words for the last verse, you are not misremembering. When the song was set to music in 1862 the ending was printed as if I love Him, when I die, He will take me home on high<\/em>, and many modern hymnals print a newer verse altogether, beginning Jesus loves me, this I know, as He loved so long ago<\/em>. That one comes from a 20th-century revision and is not part of Warner’s text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bradbury added the chorus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The part children shout, Yes, Jesus loves me<\/em>, is not in the novel. It was added by William Batchelder Bradbury, a New York church musician who wrote a great deal of Sunday school music. He set Warner’s verses to a new tune and published it in 1862 in The Golden Shower of S.S. Melodies<\/em>, adding the four-line chorus himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His melody is pentatonic: it uses the five notes of the black keys on a piano, the same scale behind many folk songs around the world. That makes it simple to pitch and hard to sing wrong, which suits small children. In older hymnals the tune is called CHINA, reportedly because missionaries said it was a favourite of the children they taught there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one-line summary of theology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A story told about the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, one of the most influential Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, says that someone asked him to sum up everything he had learned in his many volumes of theology. He is supposed to have answered: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.<\/em> The versions of the story disagree on where he was and what exactly he was asked, so treat it as a story rather than a quotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It survives because it rings true. The first two lines make a claim and give a reason for it, and the next two admit something most adult hymns do not: they are weak, but He is strong<\/em>. The song does not ask the child to be strong. It says the strength is somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Anna Warner lived<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Warner sisters spent most of their lives on Constitution Island in the Hudson River, across the water from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where their uncle had been chaplain. Anna outlived Susan by thirty years and died in 1915. Their house still stands and is kept as a museum on the Academy’s grounds, with the gardens restored to match the month-by-month notes Anna left in her book Gardening by Myself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About this recording<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Words by Anna B. Warner, 1860 (Say and Seal); refrain W.B. Bradbury, 1862. Tune CHINA, Bradbury, 1862. Both the text and the tune are in the public domain, so this hymn is free to print, project, sing and record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a new traditional gospel arrangement of the original public-domain words, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The text is unchanged; the setting is new, so a hymn you know well will be familiar in its words and different in its music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Who wrote Jesus Loves Me?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anna Bartlett Warner wrote the verses, which first appeared in 1860 in Say and Seal<\/em>, a novel she wrote with her sister Susan Warner. William B. Bradbury wrote the tune and added the chorus beginning “Yes, Jesus loves me” when he published it as a song in 1862.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Jesus Loves Me in the public domain?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Warner’s words were published in 1860 and Bradbury’s tune and chorus in 1862, both well before the 1930 line that governs public domain status in the United States. You may print, project, sing and record it freely. Some verses in modern hymnals come from a later 20th-century revision, and a specific arrangement can carry its own copyright, so check the version you are using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the story behind Jesus Loves Me?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It began as a poem inside the 1860 novel Say and Seal<\/em>. In the story, a Sunday school teacher named Mr. Linden is caring for a very sick little boy, Johnny Fax. When the child asks him to sing, he walks him around the room and sings four verses beginning “Jesus loves me, this I know.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many verses does Jesus Loves Me have?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anna Warner wrote four. Most hymnals print three, leaving out the third, which begins “Jesus loves me, loves me still, though I’m very weak and ill” and was written about the dying child in the novel. This page prints her first, second and fourth verses, each followed by Bradbury’s chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who added “Yes, Jesus loves me” to the song?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

William Batchelder Bradbury. Warner’s original poem has no chorus. Bradbury added the four-line refrain when he set her verses to music and published them in The Golden Shower of S.S. Melodies<\/em> in 1862.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Karl Barth really sum up his theology with Jesus Loves Me?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The story is widely told: asked to summarise his life’s work, the theologian Karl Barth is said to have answered “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Accounts differ on where it happened and what he was asked, so it is best treated as an anecdote rather than a documented quotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is the tune of Jesus Loves Me called China?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Nineteenth-century hymnals often named the tune CHINA, reportedly because missionaries said it was a favourite of Chinese children. Bradbury wrote it in a five-note pentatonic scale, which makes it easy for young children to learn and sing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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