97 Bible Verses about Foreigners

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens [outsiders without rights of citizenship], but you are fellow citizens with the saints (God’s people), and are [members] of God’s household,

But the stranger who resides with you shall be to you like someone native-born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.

‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress or mistreat him.

Therefore, show your love for the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope [of remaining].

You shall have one standard of law for the stranger among you as well as for the native, for I am the Lord your God.’”

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul [the feelings, thoughts, and concerns] of a stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt.

“Foreigners will build up your walls,
And their kings will serve you;
For in My [righteous] wrath I struck you,
But in My favor and grace I have had compassion on you.

As soon as they hear me, they respond and obey me;
Foreigners feign obedience to me.

“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
To minister to Him, and to love the name of the Lord,
To be His servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it
And holds fast to My covenant [by conscientious obedience];

He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) by giving him food and clothing.

The same law shall apply to the native-born and to the stranger who lives temporarily among you.”

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul.

“Moreover, concerning a foreigner who is not of Your people Israel, but comes from a far (distant) country for the sake of Your name [to plead with You]

In whatever tribe the foreigner resides, there shall you give him his inheritance,” says the Lord God.

And strangers will be filled with your strength
And your hard-earned wealth will go to the house of a foreigner [who does not know God];

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
Our houses to foreigners.

‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are [only] foreigners and temporary residents with Me.

you shall most certainly set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. You shall set a king over you from among your countrymen (brothers); you may not choose a foreigner [to rule] over you who is not your countryman.

The Lord protects the strangers;
He supports the fatherless and the widow;
But He makes crooked the way of the wicked.

Strangers will stand and feed your flocks,
And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob (the captives in Babylon) and will again choose Israel, and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners (Gentiles) will join them [as proselytes] and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob (Israel).

You shall divide it by lot as an inheritance among yourselves and among the foreigners who stay among you, who give birth to sons among you. They shall be to you as the native-born [in the country] among the children (descendants) of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.

“Foreigners lose heart;
They come trembling out of their strongholds.

It will come about when your people say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall answer them, ‘As you have abandoned (rejected) Me,’ [says the Lord,] ‘and have served strange and foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

‘Thus says the Lord God, “No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the sons of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary.

God said to Abram, “Know for sure that your descendants will be strangers [living temporarily] in a land (Egypt) that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

All these died in faith [guided and sustained by it], without receiving the [tangible fulfillment of God’s] promises, only having seen (anticipated) them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

I will give it into the hands of strangers (Babylonians) as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they shall profane it.

So after consultation they used the money to buy the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers.

The Lord has sworn [an oath] by His right hand and by His mighty arm,
“I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies,
Nor will [the invading] foreigners drink your new wine for which you have labored.”

‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the edges of your field, nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.’”

“Also in regard to the foreigner who is not from Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of Your great name and Your mighty power and Your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this house,

Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers (Babylonians) upon you,
The most ruthless and violent of the nations.
And they will draw their swords
Against the beauty of your wisdom [O Tyre]
And defile your splendor.

For anyone of the house of Israel or among the strangers who immigrate to Israel who separates himself from Me, taking his idols into his heart, and puts right before his face the [vile] stumbling block of his wickedness and guilt, and [then] comes to the prophet to ask of Me for himself, I the Lord will answer him Myself.

If a stranger living temporarily among you wishes to celebrate the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, and then he may participate and celebrate it like one that is born in the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it.

Foreigners lose heart,
And come trembling out of their strongholds.

“You shall not pervert the justice due a stranger or an orphan, nor seize (impound) a widow’s garment as security [for a loan].

“You shall not eat anything that dies on its own. You may give it to the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your [city] gates, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner [since they are not under God’s law], but you are a people holy (set apart) to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat or a lamb in its mother’s milk.

When there were only a few men in number,
Very few [in fact], and strangers in it;

Your land lies desolate [because of your disobedience],
Your cities are burned with fire,
Your fields—strangers are devouring them in your very presence;
It is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

“Foreigners pretend obedience to me;
As soon as they hear [me], they obey me.

But as for you, you are to keep My statutes and My judgments (precepts) and shall not commit any of these repulsive acts, neither the native-born, nor the stranger who lives temporarily among you

There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before the entire assembly of Israel, including the women and the children and the foreigners who were living among them.

So David gave orders to gather the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, and he assigned stonecutters to hew out stones to build the house of God.

(Now all the Athenians and the foreigners visiting there used to spend their [leisure] time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

“Then you shall say to them, ‘Any man from the house of Israel or any of the strangers living temporarily among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice

The descendants of Israel (Jacob) separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the wrongdoings of their fathers.

You may require repayment from a foreigner, but whatever of yours is with your brother [Israelite] your hand shall release.

“And I will send foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her
And may devastate and empty her land;
For in the day of destruction
They will be against her on every side.

There is to be one law and one ordinance for you and for the stranger who lives with you as a resident alien.’”

Moreover, from the children of the strangers who live as aliens among you, from them you may buy slaves and from their families who are with you, whom they have produced in your land; they may become your possession.

‘It shall come about on that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘that I will break the yoke off your neck and I will tear off your bonds and force apart your shackles; and strangers will no longer make slaves of the people [of Israel].

If you address as Father, the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in [reverent] fear [of Him] and with profound respect for Him throughout the time of your stay on earth.

“When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce the third year, [which is] the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, so that they may eat within the gates of your cities and be satisfied.

It is written in the Law, “By men of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, and not even then will they listen to Me,” says the Lord.

You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your fellow Israelite you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) within your cities, so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and be careful to obey all the words of this law.

‘Cursed is he who distorts (perverts) the justice due to a stranger, an orphan, and a widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Indeed, the Lord will teach this people [in a more humiliating way]
By [men with] stammering lips and a foreign tongue,

Set me free and rescue me from the hand of [hostile] foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks deceit [without restraint],
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

They kill the widow and the alien
And murder the fatherless.

Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say,

Like heat in a dry land, You will subdue the noise of foreigners [rejoicing over their enemies];
Like heat in the shadow of a cloud, the song of the tyrants is silenced.

Strangers have devoured his strength,
Yet he does not know it;
Gray hairs are sprinkled on him,
Yet he does not know.

if you do not oppress the transient and the foreigner, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood [by oppression and by unjust judicial murders] in Jerusalem, nor follow after other gods to your own ruin,

Alien tyrants of the nations have cut it down and left it; its foliage has fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys and its branches have been broken in all the ravines of the land. And all the nations of the earth have come from under its shade and have left it.

Then you will know and understand fully that I am the Lord your God,
Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem will be holy,
And strangers [who do not belong] will no longer pass through it.

“Then it will come about on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice
That I will punish the princes and the king’s sons
And all who are clothed in [lavish] foreign apparel [reflecting their paganism].

When you were few in number,
Even a very few, and strangers in it,

By faith he lived as a foreigner in the promised land, as in a strange land, living in tents [as nomads] with Isaac and Jacob, who were fellow heirs of the same promise.

And you have not kept charge of My holy things yourselves, but you have chosen foreigners [to please yourselves] and have set them in charge of My sanctuary.”

For You have made a city into a heap [of trash],
A fortified city into a ruin;
A palace of foreigners is no longer a city,
It will never be rebuilt.

‘You will die the death of the uncircumcised [barbarian]
By the hand of strangers,
For I have spoken!’ says the Lord God.”’”

“When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf [of grain] in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Stretch out Your hand from above;
Set me free and rescue me from great waters,
Out of the hands of [hostile] foreigners [who surround us]