These Bible Verses For Humility are ones to pray when pride creeps in, when you want to serve others well, or when success tempts you to take all the credit. They move from honest prayers like Psalm 139 to practical counsel on putting others first, clothing yourself with humility and letting God do the lifting up.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1 Peter 5:5-7 (KJV)
Clothe yourself with humility and humble yourself under God’s mighty hand, casting every care on Him.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
James 4:10 (KJV)
Humble yourselves in the Lord’s sight, and He will lift you up in His time.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Philippians 2:3-4 (KJV)
Paul urges esteeming others better than ourselves and looking to their interests, not only our own.
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
Colossians 3:12 (KJV)
Believers are to put on kindness, humbleness of mind and meekness like clothing.
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
Ephesians 4:1-2 (KJV)
Walking worthy of our calling means lowliness, meekness and patience with one another in love.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24 (KJV)
Pray this when you want God to search your heart and show you any hidden pride.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Psalms 51:17 (KJV)
God will not despise a broken and contrite heart, a comfort for anyone humbled by failure.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
God promises to hear when His people humble themselves, pray and turn from wickedness.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7 (KJV)
Instead of leaning on our own understanding, we are told not to be wise in our own eyes.
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.
Proverbs 27:2 (KJV)
Let praise come from others rather than your own mouth, sound advice for moments of success.
Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 (KJV)
Rather than glorying in wisdom, might or riches, glory in knowing and understanding the LORD.
Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Romans 12:16 (KJV)
Paul says to associate with the lowly and not be wise in your own conceits.
For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
Galatians 6:3 (KJV)
Thinking ourselves something when we are nothing only deceives us, Paul warns.
Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
Psalms 131:1-2 (KJV)
David quiets his soul like a weaned child, praying with a heart that is not haughty.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.
Psalms 115:1 (KJV)
A prayer giving glory not to ourselves but to God’s name, for His mercy and truth.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5 (KJV)
Jesus blesses the meek and promises that they shall inherit the earth.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
Luke 1:52 (KJV)
Mary rejoices that God puts down the mighty and exalts those of low degree.
James 4:6 works well prayed by naming a specific area of pride, asking for genuine humility in that exact area.
Two nearby collections worth opening next are Bible Verses About the Holy Spirit and Bible Verses About Protection for Children.
Want the wider context? The complete King James Version is available at Blue Letter Bible.
Readers of this page often go on to Bible Verses For Peace and Strength or Bible Verses For Knowing God.
Bible Verses For Parents and Bible Verses For Prayer for Healing pick up threads that run through these verses.
You might also turn to Bible Verses For Hope in Hard Times and Bible Verses For Happiness.
If you want to keep reading, Bible Verses For Self-Control and Bible Verses About Self-Control sit close to this topic.
Comparing translations can help, and Bible Gateway does that for free.
Bible Hub offers commentary and cross-references for each verse.
Return to this verse as an ongoing practice of examining pride and pursuing humility.
A common misunderstanding treats humility as thinking poorly of yourself — a kind of habitual self-deprecation. Scripture describes something different: not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less often, attention redirected outward rather than turned relentlessly inward, whether that inward focus is critical or admiring.
This distinction matters practically. A person constantly putting themselves down is still centered on themselves, just negatively rather than positively. Genuine humility, as these verses describe it, involves a kind of freedom from that self-focus entirely — neither inflated nor deflated, simply attentive to something beyond the self.
Several passages describe humbling as coming before lifting up, an order that runs against the instinct to secure recognition first and only then, perhaps, practice humility once status feels safe. Scripture reverses that sequence, treating humility as the actual path rather than a virtue reserved for those who have already arrived.
Humility rarely gets tested in dramatic moments. It gets tested in small ones — letting someone else take credit for a shared idea, admitting a mistake before being caught, listening fully to someone you privately think is wrong. These small, unremarkable choices accumulate into a pattern far more than any single significant gesture does.
If you are working on humility specifically, it may help to notice these small moments as they happen rather than waiting for a bigger occasion to prove something. Character is built in the accumulation of small choices more than in isolated dramatic ones, and humility is no exception to that pattern.
Humility and confidence are not actually opposites, even though they can feel that way. A humble person can walk into a room with real assurance about who they are, simply without needing that room to validate it. The confidence comes from somewhere other than the reaction of others, which is part of what makes it sustainable in a way that approval-seeking confidence rarely is.
None of this requires arriving at a finished, polished version of humility before it counts. Scripture describes people growing in this quality over decades, not achieving it in a single decisive moment — which means the small, ongoing attempt matters more than any sense of having fully arrived.
Read these verses again on a day when humility feels far away, not only on a day when the topic feels comfortable to think about. The gap between those two days is often exactly where the real practice happens, more than in the moments when it already comes easily.
One of the clearest daily tests of humility is not how a person acts when praised, but how they respond when corrected. A defensive, self-justifying reaction to feedback reveals more about the state of humility than any deliberate humble gesture performed publicly. Scripture repeatedly praises the wise for receiving correction well, treating it as a mark of maturity rather than an unpleasant necessity to be tolerated.
If receiving feedback tends to trigger a defensive response in you, that reaction is worth noticing honestly rather than explaining away. Growth in humility often shows up first in this specific area before it shows up anywhere else.
Reading about humility is easy; practising it is harder. This plan pairs one short passage with one small action each day. Read the verse in the morning, carry the action through the day, and take two minutes at night to notice how it went. Several of these Bible Verses For Humility are not in the list above, so the week also widens your reading.
The point is not to earn anything by completing the week. Jesus’ words in Luke 17:10 keep the whole exercise in its place: even after doing all we are told, we say, “We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” Among these Bible Verses For Humility, that one guards against becoming proud of being humble. At the end of the week, notice which of the Bible Verses For Humility you found hardest to live out; that is often the one worth keeping.
Saying “I was wrong” is one of the hardest things pride allows. Few Bible Verses For Humility are as practical as Jesus’ teaching on reconciliation. In Matthew 5:23-24 He says that if you remember at the altar that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there, go and be reconciled first, and then come and offer it. Worship does not replace making things right with people.
Read one of these Bible Verses For Humility just before the conversation, and pray it rather than simply reciting it. Then keep your apology plain: name what you did, avoid adding “but” followed by an excuse, and ask how you can make it right. Listen more than you explain. If the other person is not ready to forgive, you have still done your part, as Romans 12:18 puts it: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Passing Bible Verses For Humility on to the next generation is easier with a story, and 2 Kings 5 offers a memorable one. Naaman was a respected Syrian commander, but he had leprosy. A young Israelite servant girl in his household told his wife that the prophet in Samaria could heal him. The person who pointed the way to healing was the least important one in the house.
When Naaman arrived with horses and chariot, Elisha did not even come out. He sent a messenger to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan seven times. Naaman went away in a rage; he had expected a grand ceremony, and he thought the rivers of Damascus were better. His servants gently reasoned with him, and when he finally dipped seven times, his flesh came again “like unto the flesh of a little child.”
The lesson is easy for children to see: Naaman’s pride nearly kept him from the healing he had travelled so far to find. He wanted to be treated as important, and the simple instruction felt beneath him. Afterward he returned to Elisha and said, “Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” Humility opened the door not only to healing but to faith.
Short Bible Verses For Humility such as Philippians 2:3 or Matthew 5:5 can be memorised as a family alongside the story. For older children who want to dig deeper, the teaching page of Bible verses about humility traces the theme through more of Scripture.
Use this prayer at the start of a workday, before a meeting where you want to be noticed, or at night after a day when pride got the better of you. It weaves together several Bible Verses For Humility from the list above. Say it slowly, and stop wherever a line touches something specific from your day.
Father, search me and know my heart, and show me any proud way in me. Not unto me, but unto Your name give glory. Where I have wanted to be seen, teach me to give and serve in secret. Help me to be swift to hear and slow to speak, and to esteem others better than myself. I cast my cares on You, because You care for me. Quiet my soul like a weaned child, and when it is time for me to be lifted up, let it be Your hand that does it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Over time, you may find it helpful to write one of these Bible Verses For Humility on a card for your desk or on your phone’s lock screen. A visible reminder at the moment of temptation often does more than a long reading done once. When you feel you keep failing, Bible verses about grace are a reminder that God gives more grace to the humble.
Numbers 12:3 shows up in a strange place. Miriam and Aaron have just been grumbling about their brother, and the writer stops the story to add an aside: “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” Look at what Moses does next, which is nothing. He doesn’t draft a rebuttal or gather allies. The Lord answers on his behalf, and fast. A man who had faced down Pharaoh and led a whole nation through a desert is called meek, and that tells you the word never meant timid. It meant strength that stayed under control, power that felt no need to advertise itself.
The follow-up matters just as much. Miriam is struck with leprosy for her words, and Moses cries out, “Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee” (Numbers 12:13). The one who had been insulted pleaded for the one who insulted him. Picture that in your own world: a sibling says something cutting about you at a holiday dinner, and instead of storing it up for the next argument you quietly ask God to do that person good. It is not natural. It is, though, exactly the kind of humility these verses point toward. Most of us find it harder to pray for a critic than to part a sea, and it helps to admit that honestly.
Jesus told the story in Luke 18:9-14 to “certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” Two men go up to the temple. The Pharisee stands apart and thanks God that he is not like other people, then lists his fasting and tithing as if he were reading out a résumé. Nothing he claims is false, and that is what makes the scene uncomfortable. He has real accomplishments. What has gone wrong is the direction of his eyes: they are fixed on the man beside him, using someone else’s failure as a measuring stick.
The tax collector, meanwhile, can’t even lift his face. He beats his chest and says, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Seven words, no excuses, no comparisons. Jesus says this man went home justified rather than the other. Try counting the words in your own private prayers sometime, and notice how many go to explaining yourself. A simple test for pride is whether you’d wince if someone listed your faults next to your neighbour’s. The tax collector had stopped doing the comparing altogether, and that freedom, more than any show of self-hatred, is what Jesus held up as the pattern.
John 13 puts the scene in a borrowed room on the night before the cross. Guests in that era arrived with dusty, sandalled feet, and washing them was a servant’s job, usually given to the lowest servant in the house. Nobody had been assigned to it that evening, and no disciple volunteered, which is easy to understand. Then Jesus takes off his outer robe, ties a towel around his waist, and kneels with a basin. Peter protests loudly. He can’t stand seeing the Master in that position.
Afterward Jesus puts the lesson plainly: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). The point isn’t a ritual with water. It is the habit of spotting the job nobody wants and doing it without an announcement. In a modern house that might be the sink full of dishes after a church potluck, or the shift you cover for a coworker whose child is sick. Notice who was in that room: Judas, whose feet Jesus also washed, and Peter, who would deny him within hours. Humble service here was not reserved for people who had earned it.
A word of honesty, because this subject gets bent out of shape. Some people have been told that humility means swallowing every wrong, never disagreeing, and staying quiet while someone treats them badly. That is not what the Bible shows. Paul, who called himself the least of the apostles, still stopped a centurion cold in Acts 22:25 by asking, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?” He knew his rights and used them, and nobody in the book of Acts treats that as pride.
Real humility concerns how you stand before God and how you treat other people, not whether you agree to be a doormat. If you are in a home or workplace where you’re being mistreated, setting a boundary or asking a trusted pastor, counselor or friend for help is no failure of meekness. It may be the most honest thing you can do. Likewise, false modesty, the quick “oh, it was nothing” that fishes for a compliment, is pride wearing a costume. A humble person can say thank you, accept praise plainly, and move on. Read in context, these Bible verses for humility ask for an honest self-view, neither inflated nor crushed.
Micah 6:8 asks what the Lord requires and gives three answers: “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” Walking is a daily, uneventful word. It suggests step after step rather than one dramatic gesture, and that fits an ordinary Tuesday better than a mountaintop. Take a manager who realizes a decision she made last week cost her team a weekend. She can blame the client, bury the matter, or say plainly, “That was my call and it was wrong.” The first two protect her image. The third costs her some pride and buys back her team’s trust.
Proverbs 11:2 gives the practical payoff: “When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.” Lowly people tend to ask questions before acting, check their facts, and listen to the junior person who happens to be right. Pride skips all of that and meets the shame later, with interest. Proverbs 16:18 says something similar about the fall that follows a haughty spirit. None of this bars you from ambition or leadership. It means the person with the corner office needs the same posture as the one who cleans it, which is a willingness to be told that they are wrong.
Other collections you may find useful: Bible Verses About Humility, Bible Verses About Faith, Bible Verses About Hope, Bible Verses About Love and Bible Verses About Strength.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
James 4:6 works well prayed by naming a specific area of pride, asking for genuine humility in that exact area.
This page brings together 16 King James Version references about humility, drawn from 10 different books of the Bible.
Yes. The verses about humility gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Proverbs 12:15 and James 4:6.
James 4:6 is one of the verses about humility referenced in this collection, alongside Mark 10:45.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including James 4:6, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
