33 Bible Verses about Decay

that the creation itself will also be freed from its bondage to decay [and gain entrance] into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Your wealth has rotted and is ruined and your [fine] clothes have become moth-eaten.

Then to Adam the Lord God said, “Because you have listened [attentively] to the voice of your wife, and have eaten [fruit] from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’;

The ground is [now] under a curse because of you;
In sorrow and toil you shall eat [the fruit] of it
All the days of your life.

“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you shall eat the plants of the field.

“By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread
Until you return to the ground,
For from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

For the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope

Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid]. Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day.

You turn man back to dust,
And say, “Return [to the earth], O children of [mortal] men!”

For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it is past,
Or as a watch in the night.

You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep [forgotten as soon as they are gone];
In the morning they are like grass which grows anew—
read more.

In the morning it flourishes and springs up;
In the evening it wilts and withers away.
For we have been consumed by Your anger
And by Your wrath we have been terrified.

You have placed our wickedness before you,
Our secret sins [which we tried to conceal, You have placed] in the [revealing] light of Your presence.

For all our days pass away in Your wrath;
We have finished our years like a whispered sigh.

The days of our life are seventy years—
Or even, if because of strength, eighty years;
Yet their pride [in additional years] is only labor and sorrow,
For it is soon gone and we fly away.

“Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death],
Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God,

For the ransom of his soul is too costly,
And he should cease trying forever—

So that he should live on eternally,
That he should never see the pit (grave) and undergo decay.

“Do not store up for yourselves [material] treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal;

“Even they will perish, but You endure;
Yes, all of them will wear out like a garment.
Like clothing You will change them and they shall be changed.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its taste (purpose), how can it be made salty? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and walked on by people [when the walkways are wet and slippery].

“Sell your possessions (show compassion) and give [donations] to the poor. Provide money belts for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing and inexhaustible treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

“Therefore, salt is good; but if salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

Do not love the world [of sin that opposes God and His precepts], nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust and sensual craving of the flesh and the lust and longing of the eyes and the boastful pride of life [pretentious confidence in one’s resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father, but are from the world. The world is passing away, and with it its lusts [the shameful pursuits and ungodly longings]; but the one who does the will of God and carries out His purposes lives forever.

But God raised Him up, releasing Him and bringing an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in death’s power. For David says of Him,

‘I saw the Lord constantly before me;
For He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken [from my state of security].

‘Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue exulted exceedingly;
Moreover my flesh also will live in hope [that is, will encamp in anticipation of the resurrection];
read more.

‘For You will not forsake me and abandon my soul to Hades (the realm of the dead),
Nor let Your Holy One undergo decay [after death].

‘You have made known to me the ways of life;
You will fill me [infusing my soul] with joy with Your presence.’ “Brothers, I may confidently and freely say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, being a prophet and knowing fully that God had sworn to him with an oath that He would seat one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke [prophetically] of the resurrection of the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed), that He was not abandoned [in death] to Hades (the realm of the dead), nor did His body undergo decay.

And [as for the fact] that He raised Him from the dead, never again to return to decay [in the grave], He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David [those blessings and mercies that were promised to him].’ For this reason He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will not allow Your Holy One to see decay.’ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was buried among his fathers and experienced decay [in the grave]; read more.
but He whom God raised [to life] did not experience decay [in the grave].

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. The [human] body that is sown is perishable and mortal, it is raised imperishable and immortal.

For here we have no lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be death; there will no longer be sorrow and anguish, or crying, or pain; for the former order of things has passed away.”

‘But if you do not obey Me and do not [obediently] do all these commandments, if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul rejects My ordinances, so that you will not [obediently] do all My commandments, and in this way break My covenant, I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to languish also. And you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat what you plant.

but if you have gone astray [while married] and you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has been intimate with you” (then the priest shall have the woman swear the oath of the curse, and say to the woman), “The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell; and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen (so let it be).”

‘They will be wasted by hunger, and consumed by plague
And a bitter destruction;
And I will send the teeth of beasts against them,
With the venom of crawling things of the dust.

“His skin is devoured by disease;
The firstborn of death [the worst of diseases] consumes his limbs.

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all the day long.

The wicked will see it and be angered,
He will gnash his teeth and melt away [in despair and death];
The desire of the wicked will perish and come to nothing.

Therefore, as the tongue of fire consumes the stubble [from straw]
And the dry grass collapses into the flame,
So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away like fine dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts
And despised and discarded the word of the Holy One of Israel.

“Now in that day the [former] glory of Jacob [Israel—his might, his population, his prosperity] will fade,
And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

And He has violently broken down His temple like a [fragile] garden hedge;
He has destroyed His appointed meeting place.
The Lord has caused the appointed feast and Sabbath
To be forgotten in Zion
And has despised and rejected the king and the priest
In the indignation of His anger.

Therefore the land [continually] mourns,
And everyone who lives in it languishes [in tragic suffering]
Together with the animals of the open country and the birds of the heavens;
Even the fish of the sea disappear.

“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
Then look to the earth beneath;
For the heavens will be torn to pieces and vanish like smoke,
And the earth will wear out like a garment
And its inhabitants will die in like manner.
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness (justice) [and faithfully fulfilled promise] will not be broken.

“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness (right standing with God),
The people in whose heart is My law and instruction;
Do not fear the reproach and taunting of man,
Nor be distressed at their reviling.

“For the moth will eat them like a garment,
And the worm will eat them like wool.
But My righteousness and justice [faithfully promised] will exist forever,
And My salvation to all generations.”

For we know that if the earthly tent [our physical body] which is our house is torn down [through death], we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our [immortal, eternal] celestial dwelling, so that by putting it on we will not be found naked. read more.
For while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened [often weighed down, oppressed], not that we want to be unclothed [separated by death from the body], but to be clothed, so that what is mortal [the body] will be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection]. Now He who has made us and prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the [Holy] Spirit as a pledge [a guarantee, a down payment on the fulfillment of His promise].