18 Bible Verses about Dealing With Young People

So they turned and left, and they put the children, the livestock, and the valuables and supplies in front of them.

Gather the people, sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and the nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom come out of his room
And the bride out of her bridal chamber. [No one is excused from the assembly.]

The sons of Israel captured the women of Midian and their children; and all their cattle, all their livestock, and all their property they took as spoil [of war].

Then he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made your last kindness better than the first; for you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.

“Even young children despise me;
When I get up, they speak against me.

And I will make mere boys their princes,
And capricious (impulsive, unpredictable) children will rule over them.

O My people! Children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Your leaders lead you astray
And confuse (destroy, swallow up) the direction of your paths.

Whoever receives and welcomes one child like this in My name receives Me;

Taking a child, He set him before them; and taking him in His arms, He said to them,

But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and had him stand beside Him,

but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble and sin [by leading him away from My teaching], it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone [as large as one turned by a donkey] hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe and trust in Me to stumble [that is, to sin or lose faith], it would be better for him if a heavy millstone [one requiring a donkey’s strength to turn it] were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

It would be better for him if a millstone [as large as one turned by a donkey] were hung around his neck and he were hurled into the sea, than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble [in sin and lose faith].

“See that you do not despise or think less of one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven [are in the presence of and] continually look upon the face of My Father who is in heaven.

So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones be lost.

But we behaved gently when we were among you, like a devoted mother tenderly caring for her own children.

Do not sharply reprimand an older man, but appeal to him as [you would to] a father, to younger men as brothers,

to older women as mothers, to younger women as sisters, in all purity [being careful to maintain appropriate relationships].