What Does the Bible Say About Evil?

Romans 12:21 ESV / 39 helpful votes

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Matthew 6:13 ESV / 16 helpful votes

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Abstain from every form of evil.

Psalm 5:4 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.

Ephesians 6:1-4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Isaiah 45:7 ESV / 9 helpful votes

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,

Jude 1:6 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

Romans 14:1-23 ESV / 6 helpful votes

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ...

Psalm 20:1-9 ESV / 5 helpful votes

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans! May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions! ...

1 Thessalonians 4:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes

So that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

1 Corinthians 9:7-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? ...

1 Corinthians 8:7-13 ESV / 4 helpful votes

However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. ...

Proverbs 22:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

2 Peter 2:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

Hebrews 1:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Romans 13:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Genesis 2:16-17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

1 Timothy 3:1-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? ...

1 Corinthians 10:28-33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, ...

Romans 3:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Proverbs 19:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.

Bible Verses about Evil