21 Bible Verses about Backsliding

Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them. Like a wolf from the desert they will destroy them. Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their cities and totally destroy anyone who ventures out. For they have rebelled so much and done so many unfaithful things.

For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you."

As for those who are bent on traveling a sinful path, may the Lord remove them, along with those who behave wickedly! May Israel experience peace!

But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers.

Messengers delivered the letters from the king and his officials throughout Israel and Judah. This royal edict read: "O Israelites, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so he may return to you who have been spared from the kings of Assyria.

You Israelites! Return to the one against whom you have so blatantly rebelled!

"Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north. Tell them, 'Come back to me, wayward Israel,' says the Lord. 'I will not continue to look on you with displeasure. For I am merciful,' says the Lord. 'I will not be angry with you forever.

"Come back to me, my wayward sons," says the Lord, "for I am your true master. If you do, I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. Say, 'Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth?

But I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by his treachery, your minds may be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?

You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace!

Indeed, the people of Israel are my dear children. They are the children I take delight in. For even though I must often rebuke them, I still remember them with fondness. So I am deeply moved with pity for them and will surely have compassion on them. I, the Lord, affirm it!

"Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north. Tell them, 'Come back to me, wayward Israel,' says the Lord. 'I will not continue to look on you with displeasure. For I am merciful,' says the Lord. 'I will not be angry with you forever.

if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done."

The sinful nation is as good as dead, the people weighed down by evil deeds. They are offspring who do wrong, children who do wicked things. They have abandoned the Lord, and rejected the Holy One of Israel. They are alienated from him.

The backslider will be paid back from his own ways, but a good person will be rewarded for his.

Then I said, "O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name even though our sins speak out against us. Indeed, we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

My people are obsessed with turning away from me; they call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!

"Nonetheless they grew disobedient and rebelled against you; they disregarded your law. They killed your prophets who had solemnly admonished them in order to cause them to return to you. They committed atrocious blasphemies.

They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them -- they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.'"

Then the Lord said to me, "Under the circumstances, wayward Israel could even be considered less guilty than unfaithful Judah.

Israel has rebelled like a stubborn heifer! Soon the Lord will put them out to pasture like a lamb in a broad field!

For you are aware of our many rebellious deeds, and our sins testify against us; indeed, we are aware of our rebellious deeds; we know our sins all too well. We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord; we turned back from following our God. We stir up oppression and rebellion; we tell lies we concocted in our minds. Justice is driven back; godliness stands far off. Indeed, honesty stumbles in the city square and morality is not even able to enter.

However, you must confess that you have done wrong, and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God. You must confess that you have given yourself to foreign gods under every green tree, and have not obeyed my commands,' says the Lord.

Then I said, "O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name even though our sins speak out against us. Indeed, we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you. You have been the object of Israel's hopes. You have saved them when they were in trouble. Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land? Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night? Why should you be like someone who is helpless, like a champion who cannot save anyone? You are indeed with us, and we belong to you. Do not abandon us!"

O God, restore us! Smile on us! Then we will be delivered!

Restore us, O God our deliverer! Do not be displeased with us!

Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return to you; renew our life as in days before,

I will listen to what God the Lord says. For he will make peace with his people, his faithful followers. Yet they must not return to their foolish ways.

So let the one who thinks he is standing be careful that he does not fall.

Blessed is the one who is always cautious, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into evil.

You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith, for they trust in you. Trust in the Lord from this time forward, even in Yah, the Lord, an enduring protector!

The backslider will be paid back from his own ways, but a good person will be rewarded for his.

Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment. Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, to show no respect for me," says the Lord God who rules over all.

The one who leads the upright astray in an evil way will himself fall into his own pit, but the blameless will inherit what is good.

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea.

Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too.

My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, he should know that the one who turns a sinner back from his wandering path will save that person's soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I take no pleasure in him.

For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first.

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. They refuse to turn back to me.

Then I said, "O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name even though our sins speak out against us. Indeed, we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

From the days of your ancestors you have ignored my commandments and have not kept them! Return to me, and I will return to you," says the Lord who rules over all. "But you say, 'How should we return?' Can a person rob God? You indeed are robbing me, but you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In tithes and contributions! You are bound for judgment because you are robbing me -- this whole nation is guilty. read more.
"Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter," says the Lord who rules over all, "to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

Even if he trips, he will not fall headlong, for the Lord holds his hand.

Although a righteous person may fall seven times, he gets up again, but the wicked will be brought down by calamity.

My people are obsessed with turning away from me; they call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!

Although a righteous person may fall seven times, he gets up again, but the wicked will be brought down by calamity.

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. Say, 'Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger will turn away from them.

Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel --

They were unfaithful and acted as treacherously as their ancestors; they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow.

God heard and was angry; he completely rejected Israel.

But he denied it in front of them all: "I don't know what you're talking about!" When he went out to the gateway, another slave girl saw him and said to the people there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazarene." He denied it again with an oath, "I do not know the man!" read more.
After a little while, those standing there came up to Peter and said, "You really are one of them too -- even your accent gives you away!" At that he began to curse, and he swore with an oath, "I do not know the man!" At that moment a rooster crowed.

"I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do." Samuel became angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

But I have this against you: You have departed from your first love!

The backslider will be paid back from his own ways, but a good person will be rewarded for his.

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

But I have this against you: You have departed from your first love!

and because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold.

But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless basic forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?

Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment. Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, to show no respect for me," says the Lord God who rules over all.

The Lord was angry with Solomon because he had shifted his allegiance away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him on two occasions

I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. I hate doing evil; I will have no part of it.

Then I will return again to my lair until they have suffered their punishment. Then they will seek me; in their distress they will earnestly seek me.

I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. I hate doing evil; I will have no part of it.

But if you ever turn away and make alliances with these nations that remain near you, and intermarry with them and establish friendly relations with them, know for certain that the Lord our God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. They will trap and ensnare you; they will be a whip that tears your sides and thorns that blind your eyes until you disappear from this good land the Lord your God gave you.