20 Bible Verses about Why Prayer Is Unanswered

You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Now we know that God hears not sinners: but if any man be a worshiper of God, and does his will, him he hears.

You offer polluted bread upon my altar; and you say, How have we polluted you? In that you say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And if you offer the blind for a sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto your governor; will he be pleased with you, or accept your person? says the LORD of hosts. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: This has been by your gift: will he regard your persons? says the LORD of hosts.

Thus says the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet, therefore the LORD does not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and punish their sins.

Because I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But you have ignored all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof:

He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.

But they refused to hearken, and shrugged the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as a flint stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts has sent by his Spirit through the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts. Therefore it has come to pass, that just as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts:

Whosoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.

And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you: yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness.

Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.read more.
Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.

Then said he unto me, Have you seen this, O son of man? turn you yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.read more.
Therefore will I also deal in fury: my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.

For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he has gained, when God takes away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him?

There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men. Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

You have also given me the necks of my enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.

Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves in an evil way in their deeds.