49 Bible Verses about Repentance, Nature Of
Most Relevant Verses
Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn you from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
For they themselves show of us what manner of welcome we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
And saying, Sirs, why do you these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.read more.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not regret, though I did regret: for I perceive that the same epistle has made you sorry, though it were but for a time. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance: for you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be regretted: but the sorrow of the world works death.
The LORD is near unto them that are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit.
For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
For all those things has my hand made, and all those things have been, says the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word.
Therefore also now, says the LORD, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from sending calamity.
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, And am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants.
And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing:
[To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
He that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whosoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.
O Israel, return unto the LORD your God; for you have fallen because of your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we offer the sacrifices of our lips.
And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, You have transgressed, and have taken foreign wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the foreign wives.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Therefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them, who from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from defilements of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the LORD, and that person be guilty; Then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall make restitution for his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he has trespassed.
And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: but you would not.
But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not: and when you have returned, strengthen your brethren.
And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are sanctified by faith that is in me.
But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he has committed, they shall not be remembered against him: in his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says the Lord GOD: and not that he should turn from his ways, and live?
Even from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, How shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, How have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.read more.
Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
But showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.
Wash you, make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto you, and break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of your tranquility.
Bring forth therefore fruits befitting for repentance:
Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answered and said unto them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none; and he that has food, let him do likewise. Then came also tax collectors to be baptized, and said unto him, Teacher, what shall we do?read more.
And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise asked of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned unto me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD.
And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
If they sin against you, (for there is no man that sins not,) and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; Yet if they shall come to themselves in the land where they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto you in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; And so return unto you with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto you toward their land, which you gave unto their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name:read more.
Then hear you their prayer and their supplication in heaven your dwelling place, and maintain their cause, And forgive your people that have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them:
If they sin against you, (for there is no man who sins not,) and you are angry with them, and deliver them over to their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far or near; Yet if they come to themselves in the land where they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto you in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have dealt wickedly; If they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which you gave unto their fathers, and toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name:read more.
Then hear from the heavens, even from your dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive your people who have sinned against you.
When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.read more.
For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant.
Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.read more.
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you? O Judah, what shall I do unto you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away.
It may be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings.
And the LORD turned from the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
And he remembered for them his covenant, and relented according to the multitude of his mercies.
How shall I give you up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver you, Israel? how shall I make you as Admah? how shall I set you as Zeboiim? my heart is turned within me, my compassion is stirred.
And tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from sending calamity.
Thus has the Lord GOD showed unto me; and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. And it came to pass, that when they had finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech you: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. The LORD relented concerning this: It shall not be, says the LORD.read more.
Thus has the Lord GOD showed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part of the land. Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech you: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. The LORD relented concerning this: This also shall not be, says the Lord GOD.
