37 Bible Verses about Animals, religious role of

"I will destroy humanity and beast; I will destroy the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked. And I will cut off humankind from the face of the earth"--a declaration of Yahweh.

And Yahweh said, "I will destroy humankind whom I created from upon the face of the earth, from humankind, to animals, to creeping things, and to the birds of heaven, for I regret that I have made them."

Then Yahweh called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of assembly, saying, "Speak to the {Israelites}, and say to them, 'When a person from you presents an offering to Yahweh, you shall present your offering from domestic animals, from the cattle or from the flock.

Burnt offerings of fat animals I will offer to you, with [the] smoke of rams. I will do cattle with rams. Selah

And Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took from all the clean animals and from all the clean birds, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

" 'Now if his offering [is] a sacrifice of fellowship offering, if he brings it from the cattle, whether male or female, he must bring it without defect before Yahweh.

all the cattle for the burnt offering twelve bulls, twelve rams, twelve male lambs {in their first year}, and their grain offering; and twelve he-goats as a sin offering; and all the cattle of the sacrifice of the fellowship offering twenty-four bulls, sixty rams, sixty he-goats, sixty male lambs {in their first year}. These [were] the dedication of the altar after its anointing.

And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to Yahweh your God [from among] [your] flock and herd at the place that Yahweh will choose, to let his name dwell there.

When you offer a blind [animal] for sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer [the] lame and the one who is ill, is that not wrong? Present it, please, to your governor! Will he be pleased with you? {Will he show you favor}?" says Yahweh of hosts.

And you shall not present [anything] for Yahweh [with] bruised or shattered or torn or cut-off [testicles], and you shall not {sacrifice} [such] in your land. And you shall not present your God's food from any of these by the hand of {a foreigner}, because their deformity [is] in them; a physical defect [is] in them; they shall not be accepted for you.'"

But if there is a physical defect in it, [such as] lameness or blindness, any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God.

And you say, 'Look! [This is] a weariness,' and you sniff [with disdain] at it," says Yahweh of hosts. "And you bring [the] stolen, the lame, and the one that is sick--[this] you bring as the offering! Should I {accept it} from your hand?" says Yahweh. "Cursed is the one who cheats, who has in his flock a male and vows [it], but [instead] sacrifices a blemished one to the Lord! For I [am] a great king," says Yahweh of hosts, "and my name [is] awesome among the nations."

And you shall distinguish between the clean and the unclean animal and between the unclean and the clean bird; and you shall not defile yourselves with the animal or with the bird or with anything that moves along the ground that I have set apart for you {as unclean}. And you shall be holy for me, because I, Yahweh, [am] holy, and I have singled you out from the nations to be mine.

And you will be men of holiness for me; and you will not eat meat [from] a carcass mangled in the field; you will throw it to the dog.

He shall not eat a [naturally] dead body or a mangled carcass, {so that he becomes unclean} by it; I [am] Yahweh.

"But {whenever you desire} you may slaughter, and you may eat meat according to the blessing of Yahweh your God that he has given to you in all [of] your {towns}; the unclean and the clean may eat it [just] as [they would] the gazelle and as the deer. Only the blood you must not eat, [but] on the ground you must pour it like water.

And I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh! Look! I have not been defiling myself, and a dead body and mangled carcass I have not eaten from my childhood until now, and {unclean meat} has not come into my mouth!"

And the next day, [as] they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray [at] about the sixth hour. And he became hungry and wanted to eat. But [while] they were preparing [the food], a trance came over him. And he saw heaven opened and an object something like a large sheet coming down, being let down to the earth by its four corners,read more.
in which were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and birds of the sky. And a voice came to him, "Get up, Peter, slaughter and eat!" But Peter said, "Certainly not, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common and unclean!"

And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Consecrate to me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the {Israelites}, among humans and among domestic animals; {it belongs to me}."

" 'And if [it is] a domestic animal from which they present an offering for Yahweh, all that he gives from it for Yahweh shall be a holy object. He shall not replace it, nor shall he exchange it, [either] good with bad or bad with good; and if he indeed exchanges a domestic animal with a domestic animal, then {it and its substitution shall be a holy object}. But if [it is] any unclean animal from which they may not present an offering for Yahweh, then he shall present the animal {before} the priest.read more.
And the priest shall set a value on it, {either good or bad}; as the priest [sets] your proper value, so it shall be. And if he indeed wants to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth of it onto your proper value.

All [the] first offspring of a womb of any creature that they offer to Yahweh, whether human or animal, will be yours; you will surely redeem the firstborn of the human and the unclean firstborn of the animal.

" 'If a man opens a pit or if a man digs a pit and he does not cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit will pay restitution; he will pay silver to its owner, but the dead [animal] will be for him. And if a man's ox injures the ox of his neighbor and it dies, they will sell the living ox and divide the {money}, and they will also divide the dead [one].read more.
Or if it was known that it was a goring ox {before} and its owner did not restrain it, he will surely make restitution, an ox in place of the ox, and the dead [one] will be for him.

And {he who kills} a domestic animal must repay [for] it life in place of life. And when a man {causes} a physical defect in his fellow citizen {according to} what he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture in place of fracture, eye in place of eye, tooth in place of tooth--{according to} [the] physical defect he {causes} to the person, likewise it shall be {caused} to him.read more.
And a killer of a domestic animal must repay [for] it, and a killer of a human shall be put to death.

" 'Anyone lying with an animal will surely be put to death.

" 'You must keep my statutes: [as for] your domestic animals, you shall not cause two differing kinds to breed; [as for] your field, you shall not sow two differing kinds of seed; and, a garment of two differing kinds [of] woven material should not be worn on you.

" 'And when {one of the animals} dies that is for you to eat, the one who touches its dead body shall become unclean until the evening.

And Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand to the heavens, and let there be hail in all the land of Egypt, on human and on animal and on all the vegetation of the field in the land of Egypt." And Moses stretched out his staff to the heavens, and Yahweh gave thunder and hail, and fire went [to the] earth, and Yahweh caused hail to rain on the land of Egypt. And there was hail, and fire [was] flashing back and forth in the midst of the very severe hail, the like of which was not in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.read more.
And the hail struck in all the land of Egypt all that [was] in the field, from human to animal, and the hail struck all the vegetation of the field and smashed every tree of the field.

Who struck the firstborn of Egypt, both of humans and animals.

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, and for [the] pastures of [the] desert a lament, because they are laid waste so that no man passes through. And [the] sounds of cattle are not heard, from [the] birds of heaven to [the] animals they have fled, they are gone.

Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Because of the doings of Edom in avenging himself [with] vengeance for the house of Judah, and [so] they became very guilty and they avenged themselves on them," therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: "so I will stretch out my hand against Edom and I will cut off from it [both] human and animal, and I will make it a ruin from Teman and Dedan; they will fall by the sword.

To you, Yahweh, I cry out, because fire has devoured the pastures of the desert, and flames burned all the trees of the field. Also, the beasts of [the] field long for you, because the courses of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the desert.

For [the] violence of Lebanon will cover you, and [the] destruction of wild animals will shatter them on account of the blood of humanity, and [the] violence [against the] land, [against] a city and all the inhabitants in it.

{Like this plague} will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the camel, and the donkey, and every kind of animal in those camps.

" 'And if you go against me [in] hostility and you are not willing to listen to me, then I will add a plague onto you seven times according to your sins. And I will send {wild animals} out among you, and they shall make you childless, and they shall cut down your domestic animals, and they shall make you fewer; and your roads shall be desolate.

"Thus you must say to them, 'Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "{As I live}, {surely} whoever [is] in the ruins, by the sword they will fall, and whoever [is] on the surface of the open field, I will give him to the animals to eat him, and whoever [is] in the stronghold and in the cave, they will die by the plague.

[While] the words [were] still in the mouth of the king, a voice from heaven came, [saying], 'To you, King Nebuchadnezzar, [it] is declared that the kingdom has departed from you, and you will be driven away from {human society} and your dwelling [will be] with the animals of the field and they will cause you to graze [the] grass like oxen, and seven times will pass over you, until you acknowledge that the Most High [is] sovereign over the kingdom of humankind and that he gives it to whom he wills.'

and I will lay waste to her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, "They [are] my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me." I will make them a forest, and the wild animals of the field will devour them.