'Shame' in the Bible

Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

She conceived and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my shame.”

Now the sons of Jacob came in from the fields when they had news of it, and they were wounded and very angry because of the shame he had done in Israel by having connection with Jacob's daughter; and they said, Such a thing is not to be done.

And they said, It is not possible for us to give our sister to one who is without circumcision, for that would be a cause of shame to us:

Then Judah said, Let her take it for herself, lest we be put to shame. Behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.

And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

You are not to shame your father by having sex with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual intercourse with her.

You are not to have sex with your father’s wife; it will shame your father.

You are not to have sexual intercourse with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, because it will shame your family.

You are not to shame your father’s brother by coming near his wife to have sexual intercourse; she is your aunt.

You are not to have sexual intercourse with your brother’s wife; it will shame your brother.

You may not take as wife a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, for they are of one family: it is an act of shame.

And you may not make any of your children go through the fire as an offering to Molech, and you may not put shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.

And as for anyone who takes it for food, his sin will be on him, for he has put shame on the holy thing of the Lord: he will be cut off from his people.

And do not take an oath in my name falsely, putting shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.

Do not make your daughter common by letting her become a loose woman, for fear that the land may become full of shame.

And the man who has sex relations with his father's wife has put shame on his father: the two of them are to be put to death; their blood will be on them.

And if a man takes as wife a woman and her mother, it is an act of shame; let them be burned with fire, all three of them, so that there may be no shame among you.

'And a man who taketh his sister, a daughter of his father or daughter of his mother, and he hath seen her nakedness, and she seeth his nakedness: it is a shame; and they have been cut off before the eyes of the sons of their people; the nakedness of his sister he hath uncovered; his iniquity he beareth.

And if a man has sex relations with the wife of his father's brother, he has put shame on his father's brother: their sin will be on them; till the day of their death they will have no children.

And if a man takes his brother's wife, it is an unclean act; he has put shame on his brother; they will have no children.

But let him, being a chief among his people, not make himself unclean in such a way as to put shame on himself.

And if the daughter of a priest makes herself common and by her loose behaviour puts shame on her father, let her be burned with fire.

If this is to be my fate, put me to death now in answer to my prayer, if I have grace in your eyes; and let me not see my shame.

But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.”

And now he has put shame on her, saying that she is not a virgin; but here is the sign that she is a virgin. Then they are to put her clothing before the responsible men of the town.

Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you.

Then you are to take the two of them to the doorway of the town, and have them stoned to death; the young virgin, because she gave no cry for help, though it was in the town, and the man, because he has put shame on his neighbour's wife: so you are to put away evil from among you.

Then the man will have to give the virgin's father fifty shekels of silver and make her his wife, because he has put shame on her; he may never put her away all his life.

Then his brother's wife is to come to him, before the responsible men of the town, and take his shoe off his foot, and put shame on him, and say, So let it be done to the man who will not take care of his brother's name.

Cursed is he who has sex relations with his father's wife, for he has put shame on his father. And let all the people say, So be it.

And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Today the shame of Egypt has been rolled away from you. So that place was named Gilgal, to this day.

Then the man who is taken with the cursed thing is to be burned, with everything which is his; because he has gone against the agreement of the Lord and has done an act of shame in Israel.

Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man.

See, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his servant-wife: I will send them out for you to take them and do with them whatever you will. But do no such thing of shame to this man.

Then I took my concubine and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout Israel’s territory, because they committed a horrible shame in Israel.

And we will take ten men out of every hundred, through all the tribes of Israel, a hundred out of every thousand, a thousand out of every ten thousand, to get food for the people, so that they may give to Gibeah of Benjamin the right punishment for the act of shame they have done in Israel.

And Nahash the Ammonite said to them, I will make an agreement with you on this condition, that all your right eyes are put out; so that I may make it a cause of shame to all Israel.

And the Philistine said, I have put to shame the armies of Israel this day; give me a man so that we may have a fight together.

And the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man? Clearly he has come out to put shame on Israel: and it is certain that if any man overcomes him, the king will give that man great wealth, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's family free in Israel.

And David said to the men near him, What will be done to the man who overcomes this Philistine and takes away the shame from Israel? for who is this Philistine, a man without circumcision, that he has put shame on the armies of the living God?

Your servant has overcome lion and bear: and the fate of this Philistine, who is without circumcision, will be like theirs, seeing that he has put shame on the armies of the living God.

Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin: but I come to you in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of the armies of Israel on which you have put shame.

Then Saul became angry with Jonathan and shouted, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you are siding with Jesse’s son to your own shame and to the disgrace of your mother?

So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat the second day of the month: for he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame.

and, now, I have heard that thou hast shearers; now, the shepherds whom thou hast have been with us, we have not put them to shame, nor hath anything been looked after by them, all the days of their being in Carmel.

and the men are very good to us, and have not put us to shame, and we have not looked after anything all the days we have gone up and down with them, in our being in the field;

And David, hearing that Nabal was dead, said, May the Lord be praised, who has taken up my cause against Nabal for the shame which he put on me, and has kept back his servant from evil, and has sent on Nabal's head the reward of his evil-doing. And David sent word to Abigail, desiring to take her as his wife.

Then David came back to give a blessing to his family. And Michal, Saul's daughter, came out to him and said, How full of glory was the king of Israel today, who let himself be seen uncovered by his servant-girls like a foolish person uncovering himself without shame!

I am willing to shame and humiliate myself even more than this! But with the slave girls whom you mentioned let me be distinguished!"

And answering him, she said, O my brother, do not put shame on me; it is not right for such a thing to be done in Israel: do not this evil thing.

And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.

And Joab cometh in unto the king to the house, and saith, 'Thou hast put to shame to-day the faces of all thy servants, those delivering thy life to-day, and the life of thy sons, and of thy daughters, and the life of thy wives, and the life of thy concubines,

And when he was purposing to put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimei, David's brother, put him to death.

Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples.

How then may you put to shame the least of my master's servants? and you have put your hope in Egypt for war-carriages and horsemen:

And they said to him, Hezekiah says, This day is a day of trouble and punishment and shame; for the children are ready to come to birth, but there is no strength to give birth to them.

And their inhabitants were powerless, They were dismayed and put to shame; They were as the growing grass, and as the green herb, As the grass on the housetops, and grain blighted before it be grown up.

And when he put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, put him to death.

Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

And so the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to be a cause of fear and wonder and shame, as your eyes have seen.

And he sent letters, in addition, to put shame on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to say evil against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not been able to keep their people safe from my hands, no more will the God of Hezekiah keep his people safe from my hands.

And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword.

But they put shame on the servants of God, making sport of his words and laughing at his prophets, till the wrath of God was moved against his people, till there was no help.

For I would not, for shame, make request to the king for a band of armed men and horsemen to give us help against those who might make attacks on us on the way: for we had said to the king, The hand of our God is on his servants for good, but his power and his wrath are against all those who are turned away from him.

I said, O my God, shame keeps me from lifting up my face to you, my God: for our sins are increased higher than our heads and our evil-doing has come up to heaven.

Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our fathers until the present. Because of our iniquities we have been handed over, along with our kings and priests, to the surrounding kings, and to the sword, captivity, plundering, and open shame, as it is today.

They told me, "The survivors of the captivity there in the province are living in great distress and shame. Furthermore, the Jerusalem wall remains broken down and its gates have been burned by fire."

Then I said to them, You see what a bad condition we are in; how Jerusalem is a waste, and its doorways burned with fire: come, let us get to work, building up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer be put to shame.

Give ear, O our God, for we are looked down on: let their words of shame be turned back on themselves, and let them be given up to wasting in a land where they are prisoners:

So I said, "What you're doing isn't right! Shouldn't you live in the fear of our God to avoid shame from our foreign enemies?

For this reason they had given him money, in order that I might be overcome by fear and do what he said and do wrong, and so they would have reason to say evil about me and put shame on me.

Keep them in mind, O my God, because they have put shame on the priests' name and on the agreement of the priests and the Levites.

And the wives of the captains of Persia and Media, hearing what the queen has done, will say the same to all the king's captains. So there will be much shame and wrath.

To a despiser of his friends is shame, And the fear of the Mighty he forsaketh.

They were put to shame because they had hoped; They came thither, and were confounded.

They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.

If I am wicked, woe to me!And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head.I am filled with shameand aware of my affliction.

Should your loose talk put people to silence? {And when you mock, shall no one put you to shame}?

He puts shame on chiefs, and takes away the power of the strong;

Evil has made them with child, and they give birth to trouble; and the fruit of their body is shame for themselves.

He has made me a word of shame to the peoples; I have become a mark for their sport.

You have humiliated me ten times now,and you mistreat me without shame.

The chastisement of my shame I hear, And the spirit of mine understanding Doth cause me to answer:

They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land.

And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them.

I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me.

For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me.

O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.

As for all my enemies, they will be put to shame; they will be greatly frightened and suddenly turn away ashamed. A Davidic psalm, which he sang to the LORD, because of the words of Cush the descendant of Benjamin.

You have made clear your strength even out of the mouths of babies at the breast, because of those who are against you; so that you may put to shame the cruel and violent man.

You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted,But the Lord is his refuge.

They cried out to you and escaped; they trusted in you and were not put to shame.

O my God, in thee have I trusted, Let me not be put to shame; Let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Indeed, no one who waits on you will be ashamed, but those who offend for no reason will be put to shame.

Guard me and deliver me;do not let me be put to shame,for I take refuge in You.

When evil-doers, even my haters, came on me to put an end to me, they were broken and put to shame.

In thee, O Jehovah, do I take refuge; Let me never be put to shame: Deliver me in thy righteousness.

Because of all those who are against me, I have become a word of shame to my neighbours; a cause of shaking the head and a fear to my friends: those who saw me in the street went in flight from me.