32 Bible Verses about Ingratitude

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, but you would also lord it over us?

Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but he murdered his son. And when Zechariah was dying, he said, “May the Lord see this and require an accounting!”

They repay me evil for good,
To the sorrow of my soul.

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember [with compassion] that I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
To turn Your anger away from them.

Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good.

“Yet they were disobedient and rebelled against You,
And cast Your law behind their backs
And killed Your prophets who warned them
To return to You;
And they committed great [and contemptible] blasphemies.

“Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is not He your Father who has acquired you [as His own]?
He has made you and established you [as a nation].

For even though they knew God [as the Creator], they did not honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.

You did also take your fair jewels and beautiful vessels of My gold and My silver which I had given you and made for yourself images of men, and you played the harlot with them; And you took your embroidered garments and covered them and set My oil and My incense before them.

Then Jesus asked, Were not [all] ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was there no one found to return and to recognize and give thanks and praise to God except this alien?

Even my own close friend in whom I trusted,
Who ate my bread,
Has lifted up his heel against me [betraying me].

They repay evil for good, they attack and try to kill me,
Because I follow what is good.

Malicious and unrighteous witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I know not. They reward me evil for good to my personal bereavement. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting, and I prayed with head bowed on my breast. read more.
I behaved as if grieving for my friend or my brother; I bowed down in sorrow, as one who bewails his mother. But in my stumbling and limping they rejoiced and gathered together [against me]; the smiters (slanderers and revilers) gathered against me, and I knew them not; they ceased not to slander and revile me. Like profane mockers at feasts [making sport for the price of a cake] they gnashed at me with their teeth.

In return for my love they are my adversaries, but I resort to prayer. And they have rewarded and laid upon me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

Whoever returns evil for good,
Evil will not depart from his house.

Shall evil be recompensed for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. [Earnestly] remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your anger from them. Therefore deliver up their children to the famine; give them over to the power of the sword. And let their wives become childless and widows; let their men meet death by pestilence, their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good.

And David sent out ten young men and said to [them], Go up to Carmel to Nabal and greet him in my name; And salute him thus: Peace be to you and to your house and to all that you have. I have heard that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. read more.
Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight, for we come at an opportune time. I pray you, give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David. And when David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then paused. And Nabal answered David's servants and said, Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who are each breaking away from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they belong?

They have repaid me evil for good,
And hatred for my love.

But there was found in it a poor wise man, and by his wisdom he rescued the city. Yet no man [seriously] remembered that poor man.

Then David asked, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?” The Lord said, “They will surrender you.”

So David and his men went to Keilah and fought the Philistines; he drove away their cattle and struck them with a great slaughter. So David rescued the inhabitants of Keilah.

and the Israelites said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread until we were full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this entire assembly with hunger.”

Therefore, the people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you find fault with me? Why do you tempt the Lord and try His patience? But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.

And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and they said, We will not come up. Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us? Moreover, you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you bore out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!

For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane,

They repay evil for good, they attack and try to kill me,
Because I follow what is good.

They repay me evil for good,
To the sorrow of my soul.

In return for my love, they attack me,
But I am in prayer.

But I will very gladly spend [my own resources] and be utterly spent for your souls. If I love you greatly, am I to be loved less [by you]?

Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but he murdered his son. And when Zechariah was dying, he said, “May the Lord see this and require an accounting!”

For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane,

Whoever returns evil for good,
Evil will not depart from his house.

These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your she-goats have not lost their young, and the rams of your flock have not been eaten by me. I did not bring you [the carcasses of the animals] torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss of it; you required of me [to make good] all that was stolen, whether it occurred by day or by night. This was [my lot]; by day the heat consumed me and by night the cold, and I could not sleep. read more.
I have been twenty years in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks; and you have changed my wages ten times. And if the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread [lest he should fall] and Fear [lest he offend] of Isaac, had not been with me, surely you would have sent me away now empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and humiliation and the [wearying] labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.

You know that I have served your father with all my might and power. But your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.

He said to David, “You are more righteous and upright [in God’s eyes] than I; for you have done good to me, but I have done evil to you.

Yet [even after all that] the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot [all about] him.

Those who live temporarily in my house and my maids count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer, though I beseech him with words.

My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague;
And my neighbors stand far away.

So David and his men went to Keilah and fought the Philistines with a great slaughter and brought away their cattle. So David delivered the people of Keilah. When Abiathar son of Ahimelech fled to David at Keilah, he came with an ephod in his hand. Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. Saul said, God has delivered him into my hand, for he is shut in by going into a town that has gates and bars. read more.
Saul summoned all the men for war, to go to Keilah to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring the ephod here. Then David said, O Lord, the God of Israel, Your servant has surely heard that Saul intends to come and destroy the city of Keilah on my account. Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as Your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, I beseech You, tell Your servant. And the Lord said, He will come down. Then David asked, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into Saul's hand? The Lord said, They will deliver you up.

David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. So Joab sent [him] Uriah. When Uriah had come to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the people fared, and how the war progressed. David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a mess of food [a gift] from the king. read more.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah live in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live and as my soul lives, I will not do this thing. And David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. David invited him, and he ate with him and drank, so that he made him drunk; but that night he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, Put Uriah in the front line of the heaviest fighting and withdraw from him, that he may be struck down and die. So when Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah opposite where he knew the enemy's most valiant men were. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David fell. Uriah the Hittite died also.

So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

If I have paid back with evil him who was at peace with me or without cause have robbed him who was my enemy, Let the enemy pursue my life and take it; yes, let him trample my life to the ground and lay my honor in the dust. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

For my father fought for you, jeopardized his life, and rescued you from the hand of Midian; And you have risen up against my father's house this day and have slain his sons, seventy men, on one stone and have made Abimelech, son of his maidservant, king over the people of Shechem because he is your kinsman -- "

There was a little city with few men in it. And a great king came against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it. But there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no man [seriously] remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heeded.

“My relatives have failed [me],
And my intimate friends have forgotten me.

You know also what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether, whom he murdered, avenging in time of peace blood shed in war, and putting innocent blood of war on the girdle on his loins and on the sandals of his feet. Do therefore according to your wisdom, but let not his hoary head go down to Sheol (the place of the dead) in peace.

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember [with compassion] that I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
To turn Your anger away from them.

Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good.

Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but he murdered his son. And when Zechariah was dying, he said, “May the Lord see this and require an accounting!”

Yet [even after all that] the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot [all about] him.

nor did they show kindness to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done for Israel.