60 Bible Verses about Repentance, Importance Of
Most Relevant Verses
My brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.
The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear) saying, 'Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forevermore; and do not go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; and I will do you no harm.
"So you, son of man, I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I tell the wicked, 'O wicked man, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he doesn't turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.
John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming the baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins.
He came into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming the baptism of repentance for remission of sins.
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
The Lord's servant must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all, able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the devil's snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.
"'Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, everyone according to his ways,' says the Lord GOD. 'Return, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make yourself a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies,' says the Lord GOD: 'therefore turn yourselves, and live.'"
But if they do not listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.
It may be they will listen, and turn every man from his evil way; that I may relent of the evil which I purpose to do to them because of the evil of their doings.
"They won't return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent.
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say among yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father;' for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe also lies at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire."
Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you, and will move your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
From that time, Jesus began to proclaim, and to say, "Repent. For the Kingdom of Heaven is near."
Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe in the Good News."
"If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations, where the LORD your God has driven you, and shall return to the LORD your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul; that then the LORD your God will turn your captivity, and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples, where the LORD your God has scattered you.read more.
If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heavens, from there will the LORD your God gather you, and from there he will bring you back: and the LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and he will do you good, and multiply you above your fathers. The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies, and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. You shall return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you plenteous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers; if you shall obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law; if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul.
"Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, 'If you trespass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples; but if you return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name to dwell there.'
If you return to Shaddai, you shall be built up, if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents. Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. Shaddai will be your treasure, and precious silver to you.
He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. If they listen and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself."
"Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,
God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.
When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life."
Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?" says the Lord GOD; "and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?
The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
I have spread out my hands all the day to a disobedient and obstinate people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts;
Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.
I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, 'You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are the LORD my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.' Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him," says the LORD.
It will come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and those who have escaped from the house of Jacob will no more again lean on him who struck them, but shall lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.
The LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing. They will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas, and will heal them.
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way. She will follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.'
"Come, and let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.
The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead."
but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called "today;" lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end: while it is said, "Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion."
he again defines a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said), "Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice. Do not harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, 'Return now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers': but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me.
O LORD, do your eyes not look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you did not even repent afterward, that you might believe him.
The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they would not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. They did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.
People were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They did not repent of their works.
And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, 'By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive: for this people's heart has grown callous, and their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and should turn again; and I would heal them.'
And he said to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables, that 'seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should return and be forgiven.'"
Then his disciples asked him, "What does this parable mean?" He said, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables; that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'
When they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word, "The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah, the prophet, to your fathers, saying, 'Go to this people, and say, in hearing, you will hear, but will in no way understand. In seeing, you will see, but will in no way perceive. For this people's heart has grown callous. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again, and I would heal them.'
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed."
Moses told these words to all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly. They rose up early in the morning, and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, "Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised: for we have sinned." Moses said, "Why now do you disobey the commandment of the LORD, since it shall not prosper?read more.
Do not go up, for the LORD isn't among you; that you not be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you shall fall by the sword: because you are turned back from following the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you." But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, did not depart out of the camp. Then the Amalekite came down, and the Canaanite who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down, even to Hormah.
Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and your words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD." Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel."
David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the LORD's enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die."
lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his own birthright for one meal. For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.
