90 Bible Verses about Letter Kills

2 Corinthians 3:6 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Romans 7:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

2 Corinthians 3:1-18 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, ...

Romans 3:20 ESV / 6 helpful votes

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Acts 2:38 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:3 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Romans 2:29 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

1 Corinthians 11:25 ESV / 4 helpful votes

In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Jeremiah 31:33 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

1 John 3:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

1 Peter 3:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

1 Peter 3:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

James 2:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Galatians 3:1-29 ESV / 3 helpful votes

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— ...

1 Corinthians 15:45 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Romans 5:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Acts 15:1-41 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” ...

John 6:63 ESV / 3 helpful votes

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

John 3:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 1:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Jeremiah 31:31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,

Revelation 22:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

1 John 4:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

James 2:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Hebrews 12:1-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. ...

Hebrews 9:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,

Hebrews 8:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 8:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

Hebrews 8:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”

1 Timothy 5:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

Colossians 2:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Colossians 2:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

Philippians 4:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Ephesians 5:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Ephesians 2:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

Galatians 5:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 3:17-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

2 Corinthians 11:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 3:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.

2 Corinthians 3:6-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

1 Corinthians 3:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

1 Corinthians 3:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Romans 8:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Romans 8:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 7:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

Romans 7:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

Romans 6:14-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Romans 5:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Romans 2:28-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Acts 28:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.

John 16:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.

John 16:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

John 10:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 6:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

John 4:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 3:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

John 3:1-36 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ...

John 2:19-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Luke 24:45 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

Luke 24:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Luke 22:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Matthew 28:18-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 26:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Matthew 25:31-46 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ...

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 end 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 22:37 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Matthew 22:1-46 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, ...

Matthew 19:1-30 ESV / 2 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’? ...

Matthew 13:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.

Matthew 13:24-30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ...

Matthew 12:40 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Matthew 6:33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 5:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Matthew 2:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Matthew 1:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, ...

Hosea 11:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

Ezekiel 47:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

Ezekiel 36:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Isaiah 2:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. ...

Psalm 78:1-72 ESV / 2 helpful votes

A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, ...

Esther 4:1-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth. And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther's young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. ...

Deuteronomy 10:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me.

Deuteronomy 4:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

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 2:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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, ...

Genesis 1:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

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