What Does the Bible Say About Suicide?

Ecclesiastes 7:17 ESV / 92 helpful votes

Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 ESV / 88 helpful votes

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV / 57 helpful votes

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Psalm 34:17-20 ESV / 56 helpful votes

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.

Psalm 13:2-4 ESV / 23 helpful votes

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

John 10:28 ESV / 20 helpful votes

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

1 Corinthians 6:20 ESV / 19 helpful votes

For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV / 17 helpful votes

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV / 15 helpful votes

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Job 7:15-16 ESV / 11 helpful votes

So that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

Revelation 9:6 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

Mark 16:16 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

2 Samuel 17:23 ESV / 9 helpful votes

When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order and hanged himself, and he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.

Exodus 20:13 ESV / 9 helpful votes

“You shall not murder.

1 Samuel 31:4 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and mistreat me.” But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.

Jeremiah 20:14-18 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?

Judges 9:53-54 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. Then he called quickly to the young man his armor-bearer and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” And his young man thrust him through, and he died.

Acts 16:27 ESV / 6 helpful votes

When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

Mark 5:1-43 ESV / 6 helpful votes

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. ...

Matthew 27:3-5 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

Matthew 4:6 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

1 Kings 16:18 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire and died,

Judges 16:30 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.

Hebrews 13:5-6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

1 Samuel 31:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him.

1 John 3:15 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Jeremiah 16:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.

Judges 16:25-30 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. ...

Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

Bible Verses about Suicide