What Does the Bible Say About Iron Sharpens Iron?

Proverbs 27:17 ESV / 42 helpful votes

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

1 John 4:17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

Micah 4:13 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

Deuteronomy 28:48 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.

1 Peter 3:1-22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, ...

Acts 16:16-18 ESV / 3 helpful votes

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

John 1:1-51 ESV / 3 helpful votes

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ...

Luke 16:19-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. ...

Matthew 19:1-30 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ...

1 Kings 8:51 ESV / 3 helpful votes

(for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).

Revelation 19:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

Revelation 16:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

2 Peter 2:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 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; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ...

Hebrews 6:1-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, ...

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ...

Acts 17:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

John 13:1-38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ...

John 1:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Matthew 24:1-51 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. ...

Matthew 13:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Daniel 7:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.

Daniel 2:42 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.

Daniel 2:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

Daniel 2:33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

Jeremiah 17:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars,

Jeremiah 15:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

Jeremiah 6:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron; all of them act corruptly.

Isaiah 48:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass,

Isaiah 10:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.

Proverbs 2:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. ...

Psalm 105:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron;

Job 40:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron.

Job 28:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore.

2 Chronicles 18:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made for himself horns of iron and said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘With these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed.’”

1 Chronicles 22:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

David also provided great quantities of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing,

2 Samuel 12:31 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and iron axes and made them toil at the brick kilns. And thus he did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

Joshua 17:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The people of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us. Yet all the Canaanites who dwell in the plain have chariots of iron, both those in Beth-shean and its villages and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

Joshua 6:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And they burned the city with fire, and everything in it. Only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.

Joshua 6:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 27:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them;

Deuteronomy 8:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

Deuteronomy 3:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

(For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)

Exodus 33:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”

Genesis 1:1-31 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. ...

Revelation 16:14 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

Genesis 2:1-25 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ...

46 Bible Verses about Iron Sharpens Iron