27 Bible Verses about Famine

For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for look, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.

Moreover he said to me, "Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay:

You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them?them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them."

A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.

All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to refresh the soul. "Look, LORD, and see, for I am despised."

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city, while they searched for food to refresh their souls.

For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts, the land is burnt up; and the people are the fuel for the fire. No one spares his brother. One will devour on the right hand, and be hungry; and he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied. Everyone will eat the flesh of his own arm: read more.
Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh; and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites."

There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.

And it happened after many days that the word of the LORD came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, "Go, present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth."

There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, "Help, my lord, O king." He said, "If the LORD doesn't help you, from where could I help you? From of the threshing floor, or from the winepress?" read more.
The king said to her, "What ails you?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.' So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him;' and she has hidden her son."

One of them named Agabus stood up, and indicated by the Spirit that there should be a great famine all over the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius.

For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls:

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

The seven thin and ugly cattle that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty heads of grain blasted with the east wind; they will be seven years of famine.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there: they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.'

The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within: he who is in the field shall die with the sword: and he who is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. And the famine was severe in Samaria.

Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the foreigners of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word."

"I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it did not rain withered.

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. "Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. read more.
Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads.

The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you do not know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always;

and shall eat the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; that also shall not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it.

All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess.

They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick.

Our skin is hot like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.

The king said to her, "What ails you?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.' So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him;' and she has hidden her son."

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.

"'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.

There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.

Those who ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.

They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick.

that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I did not send them, yet they say, 'Sword and famine shall not be in this land:' 'By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.'

I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations where I have driven them;

The seven thin and ugly cattle that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty heads of grain blasted with the east wind; they will be seven years of famine.

Now Elisha had spoken to the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, "Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for the LORD has called for a famine. It shall also come on the land seven years." The woman arose, and did according to the word of the man of God. She went with her household, and lived in the land of the Philistines seven years.

If we say, 'We will enter into the city,' then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. If we sit still here, we also die. Now therefore come, and let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we will live; and if they kill us, we will only die."

therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the foreigners of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word."

And Ahab said to Obadiah, "Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the wadis. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we not lose all the animals."

And it shall be that you will drink from the wadi. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."

"Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."

In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.

to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine.

They shall not be disappointed in the time of evil. In the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you did not turn to me,' says the LORD.

"I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: yet you haven't returned to me," says the LORD.

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

The king said to her, "What ails you?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'

They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.

The seven years of plenty, that were in the land of Egypt, came to an end. The seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do." read more.
The famine was over all the surface of the earth. Joseph opened all the store houses, and sold to the Egyptians. The famine was severe in the land of Egypt.

I will save you from all your uncleanness: and I will call for the grain, and will multiply it, and lay no famine on you. I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that you may receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations.

One went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered of it wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of stew; for they did not recognize them. So they poured out for the men to eat. It happened, as they were eating of the stew, that they cried out, and said, "Man of God, there is death in the pot." They could not eat of it.

Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage."

The LORD will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations.

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.

There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.

There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites."

There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

"For thus says the Lord GOD: 'How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal.

On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.

Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, "Set on the great pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets."

There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Some also there were that said, "We are mortgaging our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses. Let us get grain, because of the famine."

There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.

Behold, the days come," says the Lord GOD, "that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the word of the LORD, and will not find it.

when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread;

Be confounded, you farmers. Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests. Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God's house.

Moreover he said to me, "Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay:

He called for a famine on the land. He destroyed the food supplies.

Now Elisha had spoken to the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, "Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for the LORD has called for a famine. It shall also come on the land seven years."

The seven years of plenty, that were in the land of Egypt, came to an end. The seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do." read more.
The famine was over all the surface of the earth. Joseph opened all the store houses, and sold to the Egyptians. The famine was severe in the land of Egypt. All countries came into Egypt, to Joseph, to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all the earth.

For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

One of them named Agabus stood up, and indicated by the Spirit that there should be a great famine all over the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius.

For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supply and support, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water;

The heifers decay in their stalls. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

It happened in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

"I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven't returned to me," says the LORD.

One of them named Agabus stood up, and indicated by the Spirit that there should be a great famine all over the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius.

Behold, the days come," says the Lord GOD, "that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.

For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for look, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor harvest; for the worm shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.

"I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it did not rain withered. So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven't returned to me," says the LORD. "I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: yet you haven't returned to me," says the LORD.

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.

You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.

I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass; and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for look, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

Our skin is hot like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I did not send them, yet they say, 'Sword and famine shall not be in this land:' 'By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.'

These two things have happened to you. Who will bemoan you? Desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort you?