26 Bible Verses about dispersion, the

“When you become the father of children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, then if you corrupt yourselves by making a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything [for the purpose of worship], and do evil [things] in the sight of the Lord your God, provoking Him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. The Lord will scatter and disperse you among the peoples (pagan nations), and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you. read more.
And there you will serve [false and foreign] gods, the work of human hands, [lifeless images of] wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell [the offerings of food given to them].

“The Lord will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and He will scatter them beyond the [Euphrates] River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord to anger.

“But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. “Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed. read more.
“The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be cursed. “You will be cursed when you come in and you will be cursed when you go out. “The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your deeds, because you have turned away from Me. The Lord will make the pestilence and plague cling to you until He has consumed and eliminated you from the land which you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption [causing you to waste away] and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew [on your crops]; and they will pursue you until you perish. The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze [giving no rain and blocking all prayers], and the earth which is under you, iron [hard to plow and yielding no produce]. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed. “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction]. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. “The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and the itch that you cannot heal. The Lord will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and mind; and you will be groping at noon [in broad daylight], just as the blind grope in the darkness, and nothing you do will prosper; but you will only be oppressed and exploited and robbed continually, with no one to save you. You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be torn away from you, and it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do. A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually. You shall be driven mad by the sight of the things you see. The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone. And you will become a horror, a proverb [a mere object lesson], and a taunt [a derisive joke] among all the people to which the Lord drives you. “You will bring out a great quantity of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locusts will consume it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourselves with the oil, because your olives will drop off. You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity. The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground. The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. He will lend to you [out of his affluence], but you will not lend to him [because of your poverty]; he will be the head, and you the tail. “So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you], you will therefore serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] on your neck until He has destroyed you. “The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand, a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young, and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you. Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you. The man who is most refined and well-bred among you will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain, so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities. The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, will be cruel and hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities. “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear and honor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also the Lord will bring on you every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of this law, until you are destroyed. Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number. It shall come about that just as the Lord delighted over you to make you prosper and multiply, so the Lord will delight over you to bring you to ruin and destruction; and you will be uprooted [violently] from the land which you are entering to possess. And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living. In the morning you will say, ‘I wish it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’—because of the dread in your heart with which you tremble, and because of the sight of your eyes which you will see. The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no one to buy you.

‘Yet if in spite of this you will not [attentively] listen to Me but act with hostility against me, then I will act with hostility against you in wrath, and I also will punish you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. read more.
I will destroy your high places [devoted to idolatrous worship], and cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies upon the [crushed] bodies of your idols, and My soul will detest you [with deep and unutterable loathing]. I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your sweet and soothing aromas [of offerings by fire]. I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out the sword [of your enemies] after you; your land will become desolate and your cities will become ruins. ‘Then the land [of Israel] will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, it will have rest, the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths, while you were living on it.

Please remember the word which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful and violate your obligations to Me I will scatter you [abroad] among the peoples; but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered are in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen for My Name to dwell.’

“Therefore I will scatter you like drifting straw
[Driven away] by the desert wind.

“Yet I will leave some of you alive [a remnant], for you will have some who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered throughout the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be exiled, how I have been broken by their lewdness and their adulterous hearts which have turned away from Me, and by their eyes which lust after their idols; and they will loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed, for all their repulsive acts. Then they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this disaster [as punishment] on them.”’

Moreover, I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the [Gentile] nations and disperse them among the countries, because they had not observed My ordinances, but had [dishonored and] rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and set their eyes on the [man-made] idols of their fathers.

I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and I will destroy your filthiness.

Israel is a hunted and scattered flock [driven here and there as prey]; the lions have chased them away. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken (gnawed) his bones.

“Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us confusion and open shame, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away, in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the [treacherous] acts of unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

But now You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor,
And You do not go out with our armies [to lead us to victory].

You make us turn back from the enemy,
And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.

You have made us like sheep to be eaten [as mutton]
And have scattered us [in exile] among the nations.
read more.

You sell Your people cheaply,
And have not increased Your wealth by their sale.

You have made us the reproach and taunt of our neighbors,
A scoffing and a derision to those around us.

You make us a byword among the nations,
A laughingstock among the people.

My dishonor is before me all day long,
And humiliation has covered my face,

Because of the voice of the taunter and reviler,
Because of the presence of the enemy and the avenger.

The presence of the Lord scattered them [among the nations];
He will not continue to look after them.
They did not honor the priests;
They did not favor the elders.

“Son of man, when the house of Israel was living in their own land, they defiled it by their [own] behavior and by their [idolatrous] actions. Their conduct before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman during her [physical] impurity. So I poured out My wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. Also I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the countries. I judged and punished them in accordance with their conduct and their [idolatrous] behavior. read more.
When they came to the nations wherever they went, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord; yet they have come out of His land.’

“From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia
My worshipers, [the descendants of] My dispersed ones,
Will bring My offerings.

So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he answered me, “These are the horns [the powerful Gentile nations] that have scattered Judah (the Southern Kingdom), Israel (the Northern Kingdom), and Jerusalem (capital city of Judah).”

Then the Jews said among themselves, “Where does this Man intend to go that we will not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion [of Jews scattered and living] among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?

And He will lift up a signal for the nations
And assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And will gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and tribulation and all these things come on you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful and compassionate God; He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations,
And declare it in the isles and coastlands far away,
And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him
And will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Though I had removed Israel far away among the nations and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary for them for a little while in the countries to which they had gone.”’ Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give [back] to you the land of Israel.”’

Saul wholeheartedly approved of Stephen’s death.

And on that day a great and relentless persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem; and the believers were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles.

Peter, an apostle (special messenger, personally chosen representative) of Jesus Christ,To those [elect—both Jewish and Gentile believers] who live as exiles, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia [Minor], and Bithynia, who are chosen

Now those [believers] who had been scattered went from place to place preaching the word [the good news of salvation through Christ].

So then [since they were unaware of these developments] those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with [the stoning of] Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, without telling the message [of salvation through Christ] to anyone except Jews.

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve [Hebrew] tribes [scattered abroad among the Gentiles] in the dispersion: Greetings (rejoice)!