49 Bible Verses about Repentance, Nature Of

And Jehovah testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, by all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, 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 witness what kind of entrance we had to you, even how you turned from idols to God in order to serve the living and true God,

Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to Jehovah, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

and saying, Men, why do you do these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preaching the gospel to you to turn you from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all things in them;

Therefore submit yourselves 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, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones. Be afflicted, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.read more.
Be humbled before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

For even if I grieved you in the letter, I do not regret; if indeed I did regret; for I see that that letter grieved you for an hour. Now I rejoice, not that you were grieved, but that you grieved to repentance. For you were grieved according to God, so that you might suffer loss by nothing in us. For the grief according to God works repentance to salvation, not to be regretted, but the grief of the world works out death.

Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Jehovah is near to the broken-hearted; and saves those who are of a contrite spirit.

For so says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity; whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, even with the contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

For all those My hand has made, and all those exist, says Jehovah. But to this one I will look, to the afflicted and contrite spirit, and the one who trembles at My Word.

Yet even now, says Jehovah, turn to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Yes, tear your heart and not your robes, and turn to Jehovah your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and He pities because of the evil.

And standing afar off, the tax-collector would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but struck on 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 abound in loaves, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you and am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

And it shall be when he is guilty in one of these, he shall confess that in which he has sinned.

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me completely from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I confess my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me.

He who covers his sins shall not be blessed; but whoever confesses and leaves them shall have mercy.

O Israel, return to Jehovah your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to Jehovah. Say to Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, that we may repay with the calves of our lips.

And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, You have sinned, and have taken strange women to increase the sin of Israel. And now confess to Jehovah, the God of your fathers, and do His pleasure. And separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange women.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, So says the Lord Jehovah: Repent and turn from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

Therefore my judgment is that we do not trouble those who have turned to God from among the nations, but that we write to them that they should abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

Speak to the sons of Israel: When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to commit a trespass against Jehovah, and that person is guilty, then they shall confess their sin which they have done. And he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add to it one fifth of it, and give it to him against whom he has sinned.

And Zaccheus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor. And in anything I accused anyone falsely, I restore it fourfold.

For so says the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved; and in quietness and hope shall be your strength. And you were not willing.

But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen your brothers.

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

in order to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the authority of Satan to God, so that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.

But if the wicked will turn from all his sins which he has committed, and keep all My statutes, and do justice and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. All his transgressions that he has done, they shall not be mentioned to him; in his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked? says the Lord Jehovah. Is it not that he should turn from his ways and live?

From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says Jehovah of Hosts. But you say. In what way shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, In what have we robbed You? In the tithe and the offering! You are cursed with a curse; for you are robbing Me, the nation, all of it.read more.
Bring all the tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. And test Me now with this, says Jehovah of Hosts, to see if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you, and pour out a blessing for you, until there is not enough room.

But to those first in Damascus, and Jerusalem, and to all the country of Judea, and to the nations, I made known the command to repent and to turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek judgment, reprove the oppressor. Judge the orphan, plead for the widow.

Therefore, O king, let my advice be pleasing to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, whether there will be duration to your prosperity.

Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance;

Therefore bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answered and said to them, He who has two coats, let him give to him who has none. And he who has food, let him do likewise. And tax-collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do?read more.
And he said to them, Continue to do no more than that commanded to you. And the soldiers also asked of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said to them, Do not forcibly extort anyone, nor accuse any falsely. And be content with your wages.

And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, says Jehovah.

And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Jehovah; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. For they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

If they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin), and if You are angry with them, and have delivered them up before the enemy, and they have been led away captive to the land of the enemy, far or near, yet if they shall think within themselves in the land where they are carried captives, and repent, and pray to You in the land of their captors saying, We have sinned and have done perversely, we have done wickedly, and so return to You with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who led them away captive, and if they pray to You toward their land which You gave to their fathers, to the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name,read more.
then hear their prayer and their cry in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You, even all their sins which they have done against You, and give them pity before their captors, so that they may have pity on them.

If they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin), and if You are angry with them and deliver them up before their enemies, and they carry them away captives to a land far off or near, yet if they think within themselves in the land where they are carried captive, and turn and pray to 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 if they pray toward their land which You gave to 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 Heaven, from Your dwelling-place, their prayer and their cries, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.

When He killed them, then they looked for Him; and they turned back and sought after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God was their redeemer. But they flattered Him with their mouths, and they lied to Him with their tongues.read more.
For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they faithful in His covenant.

Come and let us return to Jehovah. For He has torn, and He will heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up. After two days He will bring us to life; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then we shall know, if we follow on to know Jehovah. His going out is prepared as the morning; and He shall come to us as the rain, as the latter and former rain to the earth.read more.
O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your goodness is like a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away.

It may be that they will listen, and each man turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I plan to do to them because of the evil of their doings.

And Jehovah repented as to the evil which He spoke of doing to His people.

and He remembered His covenant for them, and was moved to pity, 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 like Admah? How shall I set you as Zeboim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassions are kindled together.

Yes, tear your heart and not your robes, and turn to Jehovah your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and He pities because of the evil.

The Lord Jehovah made me see this: And behold, He is forming locusts at the beginning of the coming up of the late grass; even behold, the late grass after the king's mowings. And it happened when it had made an end of eating the tender plant of the land, then I said, O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I pray You. How can Jacob stand? For he is small. Jehovah repented for this; It shall not be, says Jehovah.read more.
The Lord Jehovah made me see this: And behold, the Lord Jehovah was calling to contend by fire. And it consumed the great deep, and it was devouring part of it. Then I said, O Lord Jehovah, I pray You, cease. How can Jacob stand? For he is small. Jehovah repented for this; This also shall not be, says the Lord Jehovah.