50 Bible verses and scriptures on healing
Grouped by what you came for · 50 verses · Updated August 2026
Healing is the subject where it is easiest to say too much.
Scripture does contain extraordinary promises about healing, and it also contains Paul asking three times for a thorn to be removed and being told no. Any honest page about healing verses has to hold both, or it is selling something.
So read these as prayers you are invited to pray, not as guarantees you can hold God to. God heals. He does not always heal when or how we ask, and scripture never treats an unanswered prayer as evidence of insufficient faith.
The fifty verses below are sorted by the reason people usually arrive here. Start with the group that matches yours.
Verses to pray for healing
First-person prayers you can say as they are written. Notice how plainly they ask, and how little they presume.
“Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise.”
A prayer, not a claim. Jeremiah asks plainly and leaves the outcome with God — the pattern scripture models far more often than declaring a result in advance.
“Praise the LORD, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits, who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases.”
Forgiveness and healing sit in the same breath. The Bible does not treat the body as a lesser concern than the soul, and neither should our praying.
“LORD my God, I cried to you, and you have healed me.”
Written afterwards, looking back. Worth keeping for the day you can say it in the past tense too.
“Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint. LORD, heal me, for my bones are trembling.”
Permission to pray badly. There is no composure here at all, and it is still in the book.
“Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses. He sends his word, and heals them.”
The order matters: they cried out first. Scripture rarely shows healing arriving without someone asking for it.
“You restored me to health, and let me live.”
Hezekiah, after being told to prepare to die and then given fifteen more years. He prayed and wept first, and he was specific.
“I said, LORD, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
Read carefully: he is not saying his illness is punishment. He is bringing his whole self, body and conscience together, and asking for mercy over all of it.
Scriptures on God as healer
Not requests but descriptions. These are the verses that make asking reasonable in the first place.
“For I am the LORD who heals you.”
One of the names God gives himself. Healing is not just something he sometimes does — it is presented as part of who he is, which is why it is always worth asking.
“He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.”
Binding up is slower work than healing, and it is listed second on purpose. Some of what God does is dressing a wound that is still open.
“‘For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds,’ says the LORD.”
Spoken to a nation in exile, which is worth knowing. The promise was real and it was also not immediate.
“I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.”
A hard verse that many healing pages leave out. It refuses to let us treat God as only ever the rescuer from circumstances he had no part in.
“Come! Let’s return to the LORD; for he has torn us apart, and he will heal us.”
The invitation is to return, not to understand. Hosea does not resolve the tension in that sentence and neither can we.
“The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.”
The last promise in the Old Testament before four hundred silent years. Healing is what the light is carrying when it finally comes up.
“For he wounds and binds up. He injures, and his hands make whole.”
Spoken to Job by a friend who was later rebuked for how he counselled. True as a sentence, and a reminder that true sentences delivered badly still wound.
Verses for healing the sick
If you are praying for someone else, these are yours. Scripture treats this as work the church does together, out loud.
“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
The most practical instruction in the New Testament on this. Note who initiates — the sick person calls. Asking for prayer is presented as the patient’s move, not an imposition on them.
“Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
Healing is put in the same sentence as honesty with each other. Some of what makes us unwell is what we are carrying alone.
“Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Whatever else is unclear, this is not: he did not treat illness as beneath his attention or as something to be spiritualised.
“They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Physical touch is part of the instruction. For someone who has been ill a long time, being touched without flinching is itself a kind of care.
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. Freely you received, so freely give.”
Given as an assignment, not a special gifting. Whatever you make of the mechanics, the posture asked for is generosity.
“Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”
Peter’s one-line summary of Jesus’ entire public life. Doing good and healing were the same errand.
“He sent them out to preach God’s Kingdom and to heal the sick.”
Two commissions, one sending. The church has often managed to keep the first and quietly drop the second.
If you are the one doing the praying, how to pray for a friend walks through what to actually say.
Scriptures for healing a broken heart
Not every wound is physical. Scripture is unusually direct about the inner kind, and never asks you to hurry.
“The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.”
The promise is nearness, offered first and without conditions. It does not say he is near once you have recovered your composure.
“He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.”
The passage Jesus read aloud to announce what he had come to do. Broken hearts were named in the job description.
“Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice.”
David asking to enjoy something again. When you have been low a long time, that is a more honest prayer than asking to feel grateful.
“My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
He does not deny the failing. He puts something underneath it.
“I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.”
Replacement, not repair. Some things do not get mended, and the promise here is better than mending.
“I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comfort to him.”
Comfort is described as something that can be restored, like health. If it has drained out of you, it is not gone for good.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more.”
The only healing verse in the Bible with no conditions and no exceptions attached. It is also the one furthest away.
Related collections: verses about grief and loss and verses for depression.
Verses for healing fear and anxiety
Illness brings its own fear, and often the fear outlasts the diagnosis. These address it directly.
“In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts.”
What is promised is peace, not an explanation. Paul says it surpasses understanding, which means it can arrive while the situation still makes no sense.
“Casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.”
The reason given is not that worry is useless. It is that he cares.
“Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you.”
Every command not to fear here comes attached to a reason. The instruction is never simply to feel differently.
“I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.”
Delivered from the fears, which is worth noticing — not always from the thing feared.
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.”
Said hours before his arrest, to people about to lose everything they had built their lives around.
“A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
An observation, not an obligation to cheer up. It is naming what those caring for someone often see: the spirit and the body go down together.
More on this: Bible verses for anxiety, verses about fear, and verses about peace.
Verses for when healing has not come
The group most healing pages leave out. If you have prayed a long time and nothing has changed, start here.
“He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
This is Paul, after asking three times to be healed and being told no. It belongs on a healing page precisely because it is the answer many people actually receive, and it is not a lesser one.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.”
The deepest healing scripture promises is already finished, and it cost him. Whatever happens to your body, this has already happened to your soul.
“The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed, and restore him from his bed of illness.”
Sustain comes before restore. On the days when restoration feels far off, the smaller promise is the one to hold: you will be held up in the bed, not only lifted out of it.
“Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.”
Paul does not pretend the body is fine. He holds two true things at once, which is most of what faith looks like during a long illness.
“Suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope.”
Best said by the sufferer, not to them. It is a discovery made afterwards, not a consolation to hand over at the bedside.
“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.”
Not a claim that the suffering is small. A claim about how large the other thing is.
“This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God.”
Said about Lazarus, who then died. The sentence was still true — but not on the timeline anyone standing there wanted.
See also verses about perseverance and verses about hope.
Scriptures on healing and forgiveness
The Bible links the two repeatedly. Read carefully, though: linked is not the same as blamed.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.”
Past tense. Whatever is still unresolved in your body, this is spoken of as settled.
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
About a nation and its land, not an individual diagnosis. Widely misapplied, and worth reading in context before praying it over a person.
“The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. I tell you, arise, take up your mat, and go to your house.”
Jesus forgives first, then heals, and says the visible one is proof of the invisible one. The man had come only for his legs.
“When I kept silence, my bones wasted away. I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn’t hide my iniquity, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
David describes concealment as physically costly. He is not saying all illness works this way — he is saying some of his did.
“Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.”
His answer to being criticised for the company he kept. Needing help is the qualification, not the disqualification.
More: Bible verses about forgiveness.
Verses for strength through a long illness
For chronic conditions, and for the people caring for someone who has one.
“But those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint.”
The list descends: soaring, then running, then walking. It ends with the least dramatic thing, which is usually the one being asked for.
“The LORD is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in him, and I am helped.”
Short enough to say on a bad morning without finishing a thought.
“I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”
In context this is about enduring scarcity, not achieving. Paul had just described learning to be content hungry.
“Don’t be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
His joy, not the requirement that you produce your own. On the days you have none, the sentence still holds.
Also: Bible verses about strength.
Carry one with you today
Fifty verses is too many to hold. Pick one — the one that stung slightly, usually — and stay with it this week. If you are the one who is sick, let someone else pray it over you; James 5 suggests you do not do this alone. If you are the one caring, pray it for them and say that you did.