What Does the Bible Say About What Is Sin?

1 John 3:4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

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

Romans 3:23 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

1 John 5:17 ESV / 6 helpful votes

All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

Romans 14:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Genesis 1:1-31 ESV / 5 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. ...

Romans 6:23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 3:16 ESV / 4 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.

1 John 1:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

James 4:17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James 1:14-15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 3 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

John 14:1-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ...

Matthew 5:27-28 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Genesis 3:1-24 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ...

Genesis 2:1-25 ESV / 3 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, ...

1 John 1:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

James 4:1-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ...

Hebrews 10:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

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 5:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Romans 3:20 ESV / 2 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.

Romans 1:1-32 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ...

Acts 17:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Matthew 5:48 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Zechariah 3:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.

Ezekiel 20:1-49 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Is it to inquire of me that you come? As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. Will you judge them, son of man, will you judge them? Let them know the abominations of their fathers, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I swore to them, saying, I am the Lord your God. ...

Jeremiah 44:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster.

Isaiah 59:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Isaiah 59:1-2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Isaiah 5:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Proverbs 23:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

Psalm 51:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Psalm 51:3-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

1 Kings 8:38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house,

Leviticus 26:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,

Genesis 3:1-7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ...

Bible Verses about What Is Sin