Bible Verses for Grief: 12 Verses After the Loss of a Loved One

Bible verses for the first days of grief

If your loss is new, you don’t need to read this whole page. Choose one verse and stop there. Each one is quoted from the World English Bible, with a line about where it comes from.

• Psalm 34:18. “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.” David doesn’t ask you to feel better first. God comes close to you as you are.
• Psalm 23:4. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” David, who had been a shepherd. The valley is still there in this verse, and so is God.
• Psalm 56:8. “You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?” David, when the Philistines had seized him. Nothing you have cried goes unseen.
• Romans 8:26. “we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.” Paul says that when you have no words, God’s Spirit prays for you.

Bible verses for when you’re angry or asking why

The Bible is full of people who said hard things to God. Their words are kept there, and you can use them.

• Psalm 13:1. “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” David says this directly to God. No one in the psalm tells him to stop.
• Ruth 1:20. “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” Naomi had buried her husband and both her sons. The book doesn’t scold her for saying it.
• 2 Samuel 18:33. “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!” King David when his son was killed, even though that son had turned against him. Complicated grief is in the Bible too.

Bible verses for the long days after

After the funeral, the calls slow down and other people go back to normal. Grief often doesn’t.

• Psalm 147:3. “He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.” A song for a scattered people. The picture is a wound being dressed, which takes time.
• 2 Corinthians 1:3–4. “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction”. Paul wrote this after a crisis so bad that he “despaired even of life” (2 Corinthians 1:8).

Bible verses about hope after death

These verses don’t cancel the pain. They’re here for when you’re ready for them.

• 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14. “But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” Paul doesn’t tell the church not to grieve. He tells them they can grieve with hope.
• Romans 8:38–39. “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Death is the first thing on Paul’s list.
• Isaiah 25:8. “He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces.” The last pages of the Bible return to this picture in Revelation 21.

What does the Bible say about grief and the death of a loved one?

The Bible doesn’t hurry anyone through grief. Abraham came “to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her” (Genesis 23:2). Ecclesiastes says there is “a time to weep” and “a time to mourn” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). A whole book, Lamentations, exists to give sorrow words. In John 11, Jesus stands at the tomb of his friend Lazarus in tears, even though he knows what he is about to do.

The Bible doesn’t call death good, either. Paul writes, “The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26). So you don’t have to make sense of this loss, find a reason for it, or thank God for it. You can hate death and still reach for God.

How to read the Bible when you’re grieving

Grief makes it hard to concentrate, and reading less is fine.

1. Read one verse or one short psalm. Psalm 23, 34, 121 and 139 are good places to begin, and we have a line-by-line guide to Psalm 23.
2. Pray one honest line, even if it is only “How long, LORD?”
3. Skip anything that hurts right now. You can come back to it later, or not at all.
4. Plan ahead for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Choose a verse and a person to call before the day arrives.

If you can’t eat or sleep, or you feel stuck for a long time, talk to a doctor, a pastor or a grief counselor. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, contact emergency services now. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour.

How to comfort someone who is grieving

Job’s friends got the first week right: “no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.” (Job 2:13). The trouble started when they began to explain, and God later said they had spoken wrongly (Job 42:7).

• Show up, and say the name of the person who died.
• Say you’re sorry, then listen. Silence is fine.
• Don’t explain the loss. Skip lines about God’s plan, or about heaven needing another angel.
• Do what Romans 12:15 says: “Weep with those who weep.”
• Bring a meal, and come back in a month, when the visits have stopped.

Our guide to sharing a Bible verse without sounding preachy has more on what to send.

Common questions