40 Bible Verses about Ridicule, Nature Of
Most Relevant Verses
Whoever shows contempt for his neighbor lacks sense,
but a man with understanding keeps silent.
Wisdom calls out in the street;
she raises her voice in the public squares.
She cries out above the commotion;
she speaks at the entrance of the city gates:
“How long, foolish ones, will you love ignorance?
How long will you mockers enjoy mocking
and you fools hate knowledge?
A mocker seeks wisdom and doesn’t find it,
but knowledge comes easily to the perceptive.
If you are wise, you are wise for your own benefit;
if you mock, you alone will bear the consequences.”
Drive out a mocker, and conflict goes too;
then quarreling and dishonor will cease.
As for the eye that ridicules a father
and despises obedience to a mother,
may ravens of the valley pluck it out
and young vultures eat it.
But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Fool!’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You moron!’ will be subject to hellfire.
First, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”
Gaal son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem that we should serve him? Isn’t he the son of Jerubbaal, and isn’t Zebul his officer? You are to serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem. Why should we serve Abimelech? If only these people were in my power, I would remove Abimelech.” So he said to Abimelech, “Gather your army and come out.”
The Philistine came closer and closer to David, with the shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he despised him because he was just a youth, healthy and handsome. He said to David, “Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?” Then he cursed David by his gods. read more.
“Come here,” the Philistine called to David, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts!”
Then Zedekiah son of Chenaanah came up, hit Micaiah in the face, and demanded, “Did the Spirit of the Lord leave me to speak to you?”
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking up the path, some small boys came out of the city and harassed him, chanting, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the children.
“So now make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria. I’ll give you 2,000 horses if you’re able to supply riders for them! How then can you drive back a single officer among the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Have I attacked this place to destroy it without the Lord’s approval? The Lord said to me, ‘Attack this land and destroy it.’”
When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked and despised us, and said, “What is this you’re doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”
When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious. He mocked the Jews before his colleagues and the powerful men of Samaria, and said, “What are these pathetic Jews doing? Can they restore it by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they ever finish it? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life from the mounds of rubble?” Then Tobiah the Ammonite, who was beside him, said, “Indeed, even if a fox climbed up what they are building, he would break down their stone wall!”
When the Lord gives you rest from your pain, torment, and the hard labor you were forced to do, you will sing this song of contempt about the king of Babylon and say:
How the oppressor has quieted down,
and how the raging has become quiet!
this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:
Virgin Daughter Zion
despises you and scorns you:
Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head
behind your back.
Who is it you have mocked and blasphemed?
Who have you raised your voice against
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
“Edom will become a desolation. Everyone who passes by her will be horrified and scoff because of all her wounds.
Because of the Lord’s wrath,
she will not be inhabited;
she will become a desolation, every bit of her.
Everyone who passes through Babylon
will be horrified
and scoff because of all her wounds.
“Son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord God says: Because the enemy has said about you, ‘Good! The ancient heights have become our possession,’ therefore, prophesy and say: This is what the Lord God says: Because they have made you desolate and have trampled you from every side, so that you became a possession for the rest of the nations and an object of people’s gossip and slander, read more.
therefore, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and abandoned cities, which have become plunder and a mockery to the rest of the nations all around. “This is what the Lord God says: Certainly in My burning zeal I speak against the rest of the nations and all of Edom, who took My land as their own possession with wholehearted rejoicing and utter contempt so that its pastureland became plunder. Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: This is what the Lord God says: Look, I speak in My burning zeal because you have endured the insults of the nations. Therefore this is what the Lord God says: I swear that the nations all around you will endure their own insults.
Won’t all of these take up a taunt against him,
with mockery and riddles about him?
They will say:
Woe to him who amasses what is not his—
how much longer?—
and loads himself with goods taken in pledge.
This is the self-assured city
that lives in security,
that thinks to herself:
I exist, and there is no one else.
What a desolation she has become,
a place for wild animals to lie down!
Everyone who passes by her
jeers and shakes his fist.
Therefore, the Lord says:
I am now planning a disaster
against this nation;
you cannot free your necks from it.
Then you will not walk so proudly
because it will be an evil time.
In that day one will take up a taunt against you,
and lament mournfully, saying,
“We are totally ruined!
He measures out the allotted land of my people.
How He removes it from me!
He allots our fields to traitors.”
You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.
If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands—My statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and worship them, I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for My name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples. Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will mock. They will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple? read more.
Then they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.
However, if you turn away and abandon My statutes and My commands that I have set before you and if you go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from the soil that I gave them, and this temple that I have sanctified for My name I will banish from My presence; I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples. As for this temple, which was exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple? read more.
Then they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, He brought all this ruin on them.
I will make this city desolate, an object of scorn. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and scoff because of all its wounds.
I will make them an object of horror and disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace, an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing, wherever I have banished them.
“I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. So you will be a disgrace and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken.
This is what the Lord God says:
You will drink your sister’s cup,
which is deep and wide.
You will be an object of ridicule and scorn,
for it holds so much.
You are to say: This is what the Lord God says: A city that sheds blood within her walls so that her time of judgment has come and who makes idols for herself so that she is defiled! You are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled from the idols you have made. You have brought your judgment days near and have come to your years of punishment. Therefore, I have made you a disgrace to the nations and a mockery to all the lands. Those who are near and those far away from you will mock you, you infamous one full of turmoil.
They turn, but not to what is above;
they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because of the cursing of their tongue.
They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.
The statutes of Omri
and all the practices of Ahab’s house
have been observed;
you have followed their policies.
Therefore, I will make you a desolate place
and the city’s residents an object of contempt;
you will bear the scorn of My people.”
At noon Elijah mocked them. He said, “Shout loudly, for he’s a god! Maybe he’s thinking it over; maybe he has wandered away; or maybe he’s on the road. Perhaps he’s sleeping and will wake up!”
The craftsman encourages the metalworker;
the one who flattens with the hammer
supports the one who strikes the anvil,
saying of the soldering, “It is good.”
He fastens it with nails so that it will not fall over.
The ironworker labors over the coals,
shapes the idol with hammers,
and works it with his strong arm.
Also he grows hungry and his strength fails;
he doesn’t drink water and is faint.
The woodworker stretches out a measuring line,
he outlines it with a stylus;
he shapes it with chisels
and outlines it with a compass.
He makes it according to a human likeness,
like a beautiful person,
to dwell in a temple.
He cuts down cedars for his use,
or he takes a cypress or an oak.
He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest.
He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow.
read more.
It serves as fuel for man.
He takes some of it and warms himself;
also he kindles a fire and bakes bread;
he even makes it into a god and worships it;
he makes an idol from it and bows down to it.
He burns half of it in a fire,
and he roasts meat on that half.
He eats the roast and is satisfied.
He warms himself and says, “Ah!
I am warm, I see the blaze.”
He makes a god or his idol with the rest of it.
He bows down to it and worships;
He prays to it, “Save me, for you are my god.”
Bel crouches; Nebo cowers.
Their idols are consigned to beasts and cattle.
The images you carry are loaded,
as a burden for the weary animal.
The gods cower; they crouch together;
they are not able to rescue the burden,
but they themselves go into captivity.
for the customs of the peoples are worthless.
Someone cuts down a tree from the forest;
it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.
He decorates it with silver and gold.
It is fastened with hammer and nails,
so it won’t totter.
Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch,
their idols cannot speak.
They must be carried because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them for they can do no harm—
and they cannot do any good.
