Life situation
Bible verses for grief
Last reviewed
There is a particular way that verse lists fail people who are grieving. They arrive too quickly at consolation, and they can leave the impression that sorrow is a stage to be got through politely.
The Bible is less tidy than that. Job sits in silence for a week. David refuses to be comforted. An entire book — Lamentations — is given over to grief over a city, and its famous lines about mercy being new every morning appear in the middle of it, not at the end.
The passages below are ordered with that in mind: the ones that make room for sorrow come first. Nothing here suggests that grief has a deadline, that a death was a plan you should accept, or that faith should make bereavement easier. Where a passage is often used that way, the context note says so.
12 passages
Each shows its reference and translation, and links to the chapter it comes from.
The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.
11Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathise with him and to comfort him. 12When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognise him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads towards the sky. 13So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, 34and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept.
He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. 20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me. 21This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope. 22It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. 23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.
13But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible British Edition, which is in the public domain. “World English Bible” is a trademark of eBible.org.