What Does the Bible Say About Respecting Your Parents?

Ephesians 6:1-4 ESV / 387 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.

Colossians 3:20 ESV / 324 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Exodus 20:12 ESV / 249 helpful votes

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Ephesians 6:1 ESV / 206 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Proverbs 1:8 ESV / 162 helpful votes

Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching,

Proverbs 30:17 ESV / 146 helpful votes

The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.

Ephesians 6:4 ESV / 136 helpful votes

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Exodus 21:17 ESV / 124 helpful votes

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

Proverbs 22:6 ESV / 113 helpful votes

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV / 102 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.

Hebrews 13:17 ESV / 91 helpful votes

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Proverbs 13:24 ESV / 79 helpful votes

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 29:15 ESV / 77 helpful votes

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Leviticus 19:3 ESV / 59 helpful votes

Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.

Romans 13:1-7 ESV / 57 helpful votes

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 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. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ...

Leviticus 19:32 ESV / 33 helpful votes

“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

Acts 3:19-23 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’

1 John 4:19 ESV / 24 helpful votes

We love because he first loved us.

Galatians 5:22 ESV / 20 helpful votes

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Isaiah 43:25 ESV / 20 helpful votes

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Revelation 1:1 ESV / 19 helpful votes

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

Hebrews 8:12 ESV / 18 helpful votes

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

Psalm 103:12 ESV / 16 helpful votes

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

1 Peter 1:14 ESV / 14 helpful votes

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

Proverbs 15:33 ESV / 13 helpful votes

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

Ephesians 6:1-2 ESV / 10 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),

1 Timothy 5:1-4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.

Job 1:1 ESV / 9 helpful votes

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

Proverbs 3:1-2 ESV / 8 helpful votes

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.

Colossians 3:22 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Proverbs 12:1 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Joshua 6:1-5 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ...

1 Peter 3:14-17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

Luke 8:25 ESV / 5 helpful votes

He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Judges 13:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

Bible Verses about Respecting Your Parents