What Does the Bible Say About Anorexia Nervosa?

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Matthew 6:16-18 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Deuteronomy 12:7 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

Deuteronomy 8:10 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

James 1:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Matthew 17:20-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,

Matthew 9:14-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 7:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Matthew 6:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

That your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 6:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Give us this day our daily bread,

Matthew 4:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

Matthew 4:1-11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple ...

Joel 2:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

Daniel 10:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Daniel 1:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food.

Jeremiah 29:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Isaiah 58:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers.

Isaiah 5:1-30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. ...

Ecclesiastes 5:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Psalm 141:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!

Psalm 119:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me!

Psalm 35:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.

Esther 4:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

Ezra 10:6-9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles. And a proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the returned exiles that they should assemble at Jerusalem, and that if anyone did not come within three days, by order of the officials and the elders all his property should be forfeited, and he himself banned from the congregation of the exiles. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. And all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

Ezra 8:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.

1 Kings 21:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”

1 Kings 19:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

2 Samuel 12:16-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.”

2 Samuel 12:15-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Nathan went to his house. And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us. How then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. And David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” ...

2 Samuel 3:35 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then all the people came to persuade David to eat bread while it was yet day. But David swore, saying, “God do so to me and more also, if I taste bread or anything else till the sun goes down!”

2 Samuel 1:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Judges 20:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then all the people of Israel came out, from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah.

Deuteronomy 12:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.

Deuteronomy 12:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.

Deuteronomy 9:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.

Deuteronomy 9:9-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’ “Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people. ...

Deuteronomy 9:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.

Leviticus 23:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes

It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.”

Leviticus 16:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

Leviticus 16:1-34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the linen undergarment on his body, and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist, and wear the linen turban; these are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water and then put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. ...

Exodus 34:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Genesis 18:1-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” ...

Genesis 9:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

Genesis 1:30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Revelation 19:9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Revelation 3:20 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

1 Timothy 4:3 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Galatians 2:20 ESV / 1 helpful vote

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

1 Corinthians 10:17 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

Romans 5:8 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Acts 27:35 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat.

Acts 27:33 ESV / 1 helpful vote

As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing.

Acts 23:14 ESV / 1 helpful vote

They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul.

Acts 23:12 ESV / 1 helpful vote

When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.

Acts 10:30 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing

Acts 10:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort,

Acts 9:9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

John 8:31 ESV / 1 helpful vote

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,

Luke 18:12 ESV / 1 helpful vote

I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

Mark 9:29 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Mark 7:1-37 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ...

Matthew 23:28 ESV / 1 helpful vote

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Jeremiah 14:12 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

2 Chronicles 20:3 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

70 Bible Verses about Anorexia Nervosa