When someone dies, the words people reach for are often a few verses of Scripture. The Bible has a great deal to say to those who mourn, and much of it is not cheerful. It weeps, it complains, it asks "how long?", and only then does it comfort. This page gathers Bible verses for grief and loss in the order our Comfort theme book uses: 60 passages and 359 verses in seven sections, from the laments of the Psalms to the promise that God "shall wipe away all tears". Each verse is quoted in the King James Version, with the World English Bible (WEB) where the wording differs, and with its reference, so you can read the whole passage before you share it.

1. Out of the depths: verses for the first days

Many people are surprised by how honest the Psalms are about grief. They do not ask the reader to feel better quickly. Psalm 6 describes sleepless nights:

I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

WEBI am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.

Psalm 6:6

Psalm 13 asks the question that grief asks, four times in two verses:

1How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?

Psalm 13:1–2

The same psalm ends in trust ("But I have trusted in thy mercy", verse 5). That pattern of complaint first and trust after runs through the laments. Psalm 31:9 says "mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly", and Lamentations speaks for anyone whose comforters feel far away: "mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me" (Lamentations 1:16). These verses can be read to someone in the first days without asking anything of them. They simply say: this has been felt before, and it was brought to God as it was.

Psalm 90, the only psalm credited to Moses, sets a single life against eternity and asks for wisdom rather than answers: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).

2. The mourners of Scripture

The Bible's great figures grieve openly, and the narrators do not hurry them. Abraham "came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (Genesis 23:2). When Jacob believes Joseph is dead, his family tries to console him:

And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

Genesis 37:35

Naomi, having lost her husband and both sons, asks to be renamed: "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me" (Ruth 1:20). David mourns Saul and Jonathan in a song (2 Samuel 1:17–27), mourns the death of his infant son (2 Samuel 12:23, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me"), and cries out at the news of Absalom's death:

O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

WEBMy son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!

2 Samuel 18:33

Job's response to loss is the most quoted, "the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). But for anyone visiting a grieving friend, the more useful verse may be what Job's friends did first, before they began to argue:

So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2:13

The section ends with Job 42:10–17, where Job's later life is restored. The book does not pretend the earlier chapters did not happen.

3. A time to mourn

Ecclesiastes 3 is read at a great many funerals, and its pairs give grief a place rather than a deadline:

1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2A time to be born, and a time to die […] 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–4

Psalm 30 holds the same movement in one verse: "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5), and later, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing" (Psalm 30:11). Lamentations 3:31–33 adds that God "doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men". These are verses for the weeks after a funeral, when the first visitors have gone home.

4. The God of all comfort

This is the longest section of the Comfort book, with fifteen passages. It begins with the psalm most people know by heart:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

WEBEven 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.

Psalm 23:4

The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

WEBYahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.

Psalm 34:18

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

Psalm 56:8

Psalm 56:8 says that God keeps our tears in his bottle, because no tear is lost or forgotten. The cover of the Comfort book shows Psalm 23:4: the Good Shepherd carrying a lamb through the valley of the shadow, "for thou art with me". Psalm 147:3 says "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." Isaiah's chapters of comfort begin with a double command, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God" (Isaiah 40:1), and one of its images is a mother: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you" (Isaiah 66:13). Isaiah 53 describes the servant who is "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief", who "hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:3–4).

The section closes with the passage that gives the book its key verse:

3Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4

Paul's point is that comfort is passed on. People who have grieved often become the best comforters of others.

5. Jesus wept

The shortest verse in the English Bible stands in the middle of the longest account of a death and a raising in the Gospels. Jesus knows he is about to raise Lazarus, and he still weeps with Mary and Martha:

35Jesus wept. 36Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

John 11:35–36

A few verses earlier he says to Martha the words that are read at Christian funerals around the world. In our books the words of Jesus are printed in red, as here:

25I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

WEB“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:25–26

The other passages in this section are all encounters with Jesus in grief: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4); the widow of Nain, to whom he says "Weep not" before he gives her son back (Luke 7:13); the promise of "many mansions" in John 14:1–3 ("Let not your heart be troubled"); "your joy no man taketh from you" (John 16:22); and Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, who does not recognise him until he says her name (John 20:15–16).

6. We sorrow not as others

The letters of the New Testament do not tell Christians not to grieve. They tell them how to grieve:

13But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

WEBBut 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.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–14

Paul's list in Romans 8 is often read at funerals because it names death first among the things that cannot separate us from God:

38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38–39

1 Corinthians 15 ends its long chapter on the resurrection with a taunt: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). And 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 speaks to anyone who has watched a long illness: "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day".

7. God shall wipe away all tears

The last section is the shortest and the most hopeful. Isaiah first gives the promise: "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces" (Isaiah 25:8). Revelation takes up the same words twice, in chapter 7 and at the end of the book:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

WEBHe 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 first things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

Revelation 14:13 is often chosen for the death of someone who served others all their life: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."

What to write in a sympathy card

A card is not the place for an argument about why someone died. Short verses that say God is near, and that grief is seen, are usually kinder than verses that explain. A few that fit on one line, in the King James Version:

If you do not know what the person believes, a line from the Psalms is often the gentlest choice: the Psalms are prayed by Jews and Christians alike, and they speak about grief without telling the reader how to feel. And if you have nothing to write, Job 2:13 is a reminder that sitting with someone in silence is itself a form of comfort.

A book to give, or to keep

The Comfort book prints all sixty passages in full, in the seven sections above, as a 44-page hardcover in the King James Version or the World English Bible, with the words of Jesus in red. It is meant to be read slowly, a few pages at a time, by someone who is grieving, or kept by the bed. Its companions on hope and peace follow the same design. If you would rather read the Gospels' own accounts of Jesus and the grieving, the Gospel of John holds the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11 and the promises of chapters 14 to 16.

Grief also has practical and medical sides that a book cannot meet. If you or someone close to you is struggling to cope, please talk to a doctor, a pastor or someone you trust.