What Does the Bible Say About Killings?

Lamentations 2:20 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Psalm 51:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Exodus 20:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“You shall not murder.

Hosea 13:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

Hosea 9:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Give them, O Lord— what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Ezekiel 9:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house.

Isaiah 13:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.

Isaiah 13:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

2 Kings 15:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

At that time Menahem sacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its territory from Tirzah on, because they did not open it to him. Therefore he sacked it, and he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant.

2 Kings 8:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.”

1 Samuel 15:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

Deuteronomy 28:53 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

Deuteronomy 2:34 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And we captured all his cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors.

Numbers 31:17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.

Numbers 25:4-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. ...

Numbers 15:32-35 ESV / 4 helpful votes

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”

Exodus 21:22-25 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Genesis 2:7 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

John 16:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Luke 23:29 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’

Psalm 137:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

2 Kings 2:23-24 ESV / 3 helpful votes

He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Exodus 21:17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Revelation 17:1-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.” ...

2 Peter 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

2 Peter 1:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

Hebrews 13:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ...

Hebrews 1:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

1 Timothy 4:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,

Colossians 3:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ...

Colossians 2:1-23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. ...

Ephesians 4:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,

Romans 8:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

John 14:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

John 10:30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I and the Father are one.”

John 1:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Luke 22:1-71 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. ...

Mark 14:1-72 ESV / 2 helpful votes

It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ...

Matthew 5:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Malachi 3:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

Isaiah 28:9-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”

Psalm 10:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;

Psalm 10:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

Numbers 6:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long. ...

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ...

Exodus 12:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

Genesis 13:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.

Genesis 12:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

55 Bible Verses about Killings

Lamentations 2:20 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 51:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 20:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hosea 13:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hosea 9:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ezekiel 9:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Isaiah 13:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Isaiah 13:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Kings 15:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Kings 8:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Samuel 15:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 28:53 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 2:34 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Numbers 31:17 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Numbers 25:4-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Numbers 15:32-35 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 21:22-25 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 2:7 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 16:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Luke 23:29 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 137:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Kings 2:23-24 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 21:17 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Revelation 17:1-18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Peter 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Peter 1:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Peter 1:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 13:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 1:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Timothy 2:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Timothy 4:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Colossians 3:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Colossians 2:1-23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 4:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 8:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 14:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 10:30 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 1:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Luke 22:1-71 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 14:1-72 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Malachi 3:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Isaiah 28:9-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 10:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 10:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Numbers 6:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 12:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 13:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 12:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Suggest a Verse

Enter a Verse Reference (e.g., John 3:16-17)