20 Bible Verses about Amusements

Even, in laughter, the heart may be in pain, and, the latter end of gladness, be grief.

Now his sons were wont to go, and make a banquet, at the house of each one upon his day, - and to send and call their three sisters, to eat and to drink with them.

A needy man, shall he be that loveth merriment, the lover of wine and oil, shall not become rich.

So they rose up early, on the morrow, and offered ascending-sacrifices, and brought near peace-offerings, and the people sat down, to eat and to drink, and then rose up - to make sport!

And it came to pass, when their heart was merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make sport for us. So they called for Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them, and they stationed him between the pillars.

Then said Abner unto Joab, Let the young men arise, I pray thee, and make sport before us. And Joab said - Let them arise.

They send forth - like a flock - their young ones, and, their children, skip about for joy; They rejoice aloud as with timbrel and lyre, and make merry to the sound of the pipe;

Said, I, in my heart, Come now! I will prove thee with gladness, and look thou on blessedness, - but lo! even that, was vanity. Of laughter, I said, Madness! and, of mirth, What can it do?

And it cometh to pass - that lyre and harp, timbrel and flute and wine are in their banquets, - But, the doing of Yahweh, they do not discern, And the work of his hands, have they not seen.

Who are bawling at the bidding of the harp, - like David, have they invented for themselves instruments of song:

And, the broadways of the city, shall be full of boys and girls, - playing in the broadways thereof.

But he said - Not the noise of the cry of heroism, nor yet the noise of the cry of defeat, - the noise of alternate song, do I hear. And it came to pass when he drew near unto the camp, and saw the calf, and the dancings, that the anger of Moses kindled, and he cast out of his hands the tables, and brake them in pieces at the foot of the mountain.

And Moses saw the people, that unbridled, they were, - for Aaron had given them the rein, for a whispering, among their enemies.

But so it was, when they came in on the return of David from the smiting of the Philistine, that the women went forth out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet Saul the king, - with timbrels, with rejoicing, and with instruments of three strings. And the women that made merry responded to each other in song, and said, - Saul, hath smitten, his thousands, but, David, his, tens of thousands.

For, sufficient, is the bygone time - to have wrought out, the will of the nations, having gone on in wanton ways, covetings, wine-drinkings, revellings, drinking-bouts, and impious idolatries: -

And, an opportune day arriving, when Herod on his birthday made a feast for his nobles, and for the rulers of thousands and for the first men of Galilee,

They are like unto the children sitting, in a market-place, and calling one to another, who say - We played the flute for you, and ye danced not, We wailed, and ye wept not.

Now, all Athenians and the sojourning foreigners, unto nothing else, were devoting their leisure, than to be telling or hearing, something newer.