100 Bible Verses about Lawlessness

Matthew 24:12 ESV / 175 helpful votes

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

1 John 3:4 ESV / 154 helpful votes

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

2 Thessalonians 2:7 ESV / 102 helpful votes

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 ESV / 100 helpful votes

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,

Matthew 7:23 ESV / 83 helpful votes

And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 68 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Romans 6:19 ESV / 64 helpful votes

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Matthew 24:11-12 ESV / 62 helpful votes

And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Titus 2:14 ESV / 58 helpful votes

Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Matthew 13:41 ESV / 56 helpful votes

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,

Matthew 23:28 ESV / 54 helpful votes

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Matthew 7:21-23 ESV / 50 helpful votes

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Hebrews 1:9 ESV / 45 helpful votes

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

1 Timothy 4:1 ESV / 45 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,

Romans 4:7 ESV / 44 helpful votes

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

Hebrews 10:17 ESV / 40 helpful votes

Then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

1 Timothy 1:9 ESV / 40 helpful votes

Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,

1 John 5:2-3 ESV / 37 helpful votes

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 ESV / 36 helpful votes

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? ...

Romans 3:23 ESV / 36 helpful votes

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

2 John 1:6 ESV / 35 helpful votes

And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV / 31 helpful votes

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Matthew 24:11 ESV / 31 helpful votes

And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

2 Thessalonians 2:10 ESV / 29 helpful votes

And with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

2 Peter 2:8 ESV / 28 helpful votes

(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);

2 Thessalonians 2:8 ESV / 28 helpful votes

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

Romans 13:9 ESV / 28 helpful votes

For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

James 4:17 ESV / 27 helpful votes

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

Matthew 24:24 ESV / 26 helpful votes

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

Matthew 7:22-23 ESV / 25 helpful votes

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Revelation 2:4-5 ESV / 23 helpful votes

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

2 Peter 2:9-10 ESV / 22 helpful votes

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,

Hebrews 10:26-31 ESV / 22 helpful votes

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ...

Acts 17:10-11 ESV / 22 helpful votes

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Matthew 24:13 ESV / 22 helpful votes

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 24:1-51 ESV / 22 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. ...

1 John 3:16 ESV / 20 helpful votes

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

John 3:16 ESV / 20 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.

Psalm 32:1 ESV / 20 helpful votes

A Maskil of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Revelation 2:1-29 ESV / 19 helpful votes

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ...

Jude 1:4 ESV / 19 helpful votes

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:10 ESV / 19 helpful votes

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

1 John 2:3-4 ESV / 19 helpful votes

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

2 Thessalonians 2:9 ESV / 19 helpful votes

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,

2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 ESV / 19 helpful votes

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

Ephesians 5:11 ESV / 19 helpful votes

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Judges 21:25 ESV / 19 helpful votes

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Revelation 19:20 ESV / 18 helpful votes

And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

Jude 1:3-4 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV / 18 helpful votes

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 2:18-19 ESV / 18 helpful votes

For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.

Titus 1:16 ESV / 18 helpful votes

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 ESV / 18 helpful votes

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 18 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

Romans 6:23 ESV / 18 helpful votes

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

John 13:34 ESV / 18 helpful votes

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Isaiah 59:1-2 ESV / 18 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.

Revelation 2:16 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Hebrews 12:25 ESV / 17 helpful votes

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

Romans 8:7 ESV / 17 helpful votes

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

Romans 1:21-25 ESV / 17 helpful votes

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

3 John 1:11 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 16 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

2 Peter 3:17-18 ESV / 16 helpful votes

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Hebrews 8:12 ESV / 16 helpful votes

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

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 ESV / 16 helpful votes

And with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Romans 1:28 ESV / 16 helpful votes

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

2 Peter 2:12-13 ESV / 15 helpful votes

But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.

1 Peter 2:9 ESV / 15 helpful votes

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-7 ESV / 15 helpful votes

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? ...

Romans 14:23 ESV / 15 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.

Mark 12:28-31 ESV / 15 helpful votes

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Revelation 12:17 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

Revelation 2:14-15 ESV / 14 helpful votes

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

2 John 1:9-11 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

2 Peter 2:15 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,

Revelation 2:20-21 ESV / 13 helpful votes

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

1 John 5:17 ESV / 13 helpful votes

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

2 Peter 2:3 ESV / 13 helpful votes

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

2 Timothy 1:7 ESV / 13 helpful votes

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-18 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. ...

Galatians 1:6-7 ESV / 13 helpful votes

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Romans 6:11-23 ESV / 13 helpful votes

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 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! ...

Acts 2:23 ESV / 13 helpful votes

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

John 14:15 ESV / 13 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

2 Thessalonians 2:5-9 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,

John 3:16-17 ESV / 12 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.

Matthew 25:46 ESV / 12 helpful votes

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Genesis 6:1-22 ESV / 12 helpful votes

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ...

Revelation 17:5 ESV / 11 helpful votes

And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.”

Revelation 13:1-18 ESV / 11 helpful votes

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. ...

Revelation 3:10 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

Revelation 2:24-25 ESV / 11 helpful votes

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.

1 John 3:6 ESV / 11 helpful votes

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

Revelation 20:10 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 19:15 ESV / 10 helpful votes

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

1 John 2:15-17 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

2 Thessalonians 2:6 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.

Acts 15:28-29 ESV / 10 helpful votes

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Acts 15:10 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

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