Bible Verses About Winter show that snow, frost and cold are not outside God’s care but part of the world he governs. Scripture describes him giving snow like wool, uses snow as a picture of forgiveness, and teaches practical wisdom about preparing for hard months. These passages invite you to see winter as a season that also declares God’s power and grace.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22 (KJV)
God promised that cold and heat, summer and winter would continue, so even winter is part of his faithful plan.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.
Psalms 74:17 (KJV)
The psalmist says God set the borders of the earth and made both summer and winter.
He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
Psalms 147:16-18 (KJV)
God gives snow like wool and frost like ashes, then sends his word and the ice melts.
For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his work. Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places. Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north. By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened.
Job 37:6-10 (KJV)
Elihu describes God commanding the snow and giving frost by his breath, stopping people’s work so they know his power.
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
Job 38:22 (KJV)
God asks Job whether he has entered the treasures of the snow, showing how far creation is beyond us.
Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Psalms 148:8 (KJV)
Snow, frost and stormy wind are called to praise the Lord because they fulfil his word.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11 (KJV)
Snow waters the earth for future growth, and God says his word likewise always accomplishes its purpose.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (KJV)
God invites people to reason with him, promising that sins like scarlet shall be as white as snow.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Psalms 51:7 (KJV)
David asks God to wash him so that he will be whiter than snow, a prayer for forgiveness.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
Proverbs 31:21 (KJV)
The wise woman does not fear the snow because she has already clothed her household warmly.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.
Proverbs 20:4 (KJV)
The sluggard will not plough because of the cold, so he has nothing at harvest time.
As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters.
Proverbs 25:13 (KJV)
A faithful messenger refreshes his master like the cold of snow in the heat of harvest.
And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
John 10:22-23 (KJV)
It was winter at the Feast of Dedication when Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.
2 Timothy 4:21 (KJV)
Paul, cold and alone in prison, urged Timothy to come to him before winter.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV)
Everything has its season under heaven, including the cold and quiet months of the year.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
Song of Solomon 2:11 (KJV)
The line announcing that winter is past reminds us that winter never lasts for ever.
The Bible presents winter as one of the seasons God set in place and promised to keep (Genesis 8:22; Psalms 74:17). Snow and frost are described as his work: he gives snow like wool and scatters frost like ashes, and when he sends his word the ice melts (Psalms 147:16-18). In Job, the snow even stops people’s labour so that everyone may recognise God’s hand (Job 37:6-7). winter weather, in other words, is a reminder that creation answers to its Maker.
Snow also carries one of the Bible’s most beautiful promises. Through Isaiah, God says that sins like scarlet shall be as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18), and David prays to be washed whiter than snow (Psalms 51:7). The clean white of a fresh snowfall becomes a picture of full forgiveness.
Scripture also offers practical wisdom for cold seasons. The wise woman of Proverbs does not fear the snow because she prepared ahead (Proverbs 31:21), while the sluggard who avoids work in the cold goes hungry later (Proverbs 20:4). Even Paul, near the end of his life, asked for his cloak and urged Timothy to come before winter (2 Timothy 4:13, 21). Winter calls for both trust and preparation.
Song of Solomon explicitly names winter as passing, a season with an end already built into how Scripture describes it.
Job 37:6-10 and Job 38:22 both describe winter weather, snow, frost, hail, as something God commands directly rather than as an impersonal natural process. Psalms 147:16-18 extends the same idea, describing snow given like wool and frost scattered like ashes, then melted again by a spoken word. winter, across these passages, is never treated as outside God’s attention.
That framing matters for how the rest of winter’s imagery on this page should be read. Psalms 148:8 lists snow and vapour alongside stormy wind fulfilling his word, placing winter weather in the same category as any other act of obedience to a divine command. The cold itself is not treated as random.
Isaiah 1:18’s sins made white as snow and Psalms 51:7’s washing whiter than snow both use winter’s most visible feature, snow’s whiteness, as a picture of cleansing rather than cold. These verses borrow winter’s imagery without being primarily about the season itself, which is worth noting since they are sometimes read as nature verses when their actual subject is forgiveness.
Isaiah 55:10-11’s comparison of snow and rain watering the earth before returning again works differently, using winter precipitation as an image for God’s word accomplishing its purpose reliably. Read together, these three passages show winter supplying some of Scripture’s clearest images for both cleansing and certainty.
Proverbs 31:21’s description of a household clothed in scarlet, unafraid of snow, and Proverbs 20:4’s warning against the sluggard who will not plow by reason of cold both treat winter as a season that rewards earlier preparation rather than present effort. By the time winter actually arrives in these verses, the work that matters has already been done or neglected.
Proverbs 25:13’s cold of snow in time of harvest, used as a picture of a faithful messenger, borrows winter’s refreshing quality rather than its difficulty, a reminder that winter’s imagery in Scripture is not uniformly harsh. John 10:22-23’s mention of the feast of dedication in winter and 2 Timothy 4:21’s request to come before winter both simply place events within the season without drawing a lesson from it directly, which is worth noting as the plainest, least symbolic use of winter on this page.
Across every passage gathered on this page, the cold months are described with a consistent confidence that nothing about the season surprises its Maker. Snow, frost, and hard ground are each named specifically rather than treated as a single vague backdrop, which suggests the biblical writers paid close attention to the actual texture of the colder stretch of the year rather than writing about it in the abstract.
That specificity carries over into how the season is used figuratively. Forgiveness, preparation, certainty, and the passing of hard stretches are all represented through this same set of images, snow’s whiteness, frost’s delicacy, the eventual thaw. None of these figures feel forced or arbitrary once read alongside the literal weather descriptions that precede them earlier on this page.
Read as a whole, the collection suggests that the harder, colder stretch of the calendar is treated in Scripture neither as purely negative nor purely symbolic, but as an ordinary and expected part of a larger, dependable yearly rhythm, one worth neither dreading nor romanticizing.
For anyone reading through these passages during the actual cold months, it may help to pair each reading with a small, concrete observation outside, frost on a window, the particular quality of early darkness, the first thaw, rather than treating the verses as purely devotional text disconnected from the weather actually happening outside.
Near the end of his life, Paul sat in a Roman prison and wrote to Timothy with a very ordinary request: “Do thy diligence to come before winter” (2 Timothy 4:21). He had a reason. Ships stopped sailing across the Mediterranean once the stormy months set in, so a late arrival meant no arrival at all. A few verses earlier he asks for the cloak he left at Troas (2 Timothy 4:13). An old apostle, cold stone walls, and a friend who might not make it in time.
Among the Bible Verses About Winter, this one is easy to skip because it holds no promise and no poem. Yet it tells you something. Scripture does not look down on practical needs. If you have an elderly neighbor whose heating is shaky or a relative who lives alone, the lesson here is to go before the weather closes in, not after.
John mentions the season almost in passing: “And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch” (John 10:22-23). The porch was a covered colonnade on the east side, and it would have offered some shelter from the wind. The Lord was not hiding from the cold, and he was not hurrying away from it either. He kept walking, teaching, and answering hard questions from people who pressed him. Nobody lists John 10 among the favorite Bible Verses About Winter, yet the season is right there in the text.
It is a small detail, but it is there on purpose. If your own winter means early dark, long commutes, or a hospital corridor at three in the afternoon, these Bible Verses About Winter include a Savior who spent at least one cold season out in the open among people, doing his Father’s work. He knows the weather you are in.
Isaiah 55:10-11, one of the Bible Verses About Winter people rarely notice, reads: “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud”, and then God says his word will not return to him void. Snow here is not a decoration. It sits on the ground all winter, melts slowly, and feeds the spring. A farmer would understand that better than most of us do.
Proverbs 25:13 uses the same cold in a happier way: “As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger.” A cold drink in the heat of reaping was a gift. Both verses suggest that winter does quiet work we rarely credit. Read in January, the Bible Verses About Winter on this page can slow you down a little. If the dark months leave you low for weeks at a time, though, please see a doctor or a counselor as well. Faith and good care belong together.
Genesis 8:22 is usually quoted as a nice line about the calendar, but think about when it was spoken. Noah had just stepped out of the ark onto ground that was still drying, with every other human being gone. He built an altar, offered sacrifices, and God said in his heart that he would never again curse the ground, and that while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease. The promise names winter on purpose. It sits in the list with everything else that keeps life going.
That is a different way to hear the word cold. After the flood, a steady pattern of seasons was itself a mercy. People could plan, plant, store food and expect the frost to end. Many of the Bible verses about winter share this undertone of reliability. The weather can be harsh, but it is not chaos, and the God who set the order has not walked away from it. A family sitting in a dark kitchen during a power outage may not feel that comfort at once, but it is true underneath the inconvenience, and it is worth saying quietly while the candles burn down.
When God finally answers Job out of the whirlwind, he does not explain suffering. He asks questions. One of them reaches straight into the sky: have you entered into the treasures of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail (Job 38:22)? Earlier, Elihu had already said that by the breath of God frost is given and the broad waters are frozen (Job 37:10). Both speakers treat winter as something that belongs to God and not to us.
Anyone who has driven through a blizzard understands why that matters. You can own a good coat, a four-wheel-drive truck and three weather apps, and a storm will still decide your plans. Job needed that reminder in the opposite direction from most of us. He had been tempted to think God owed him an account. The snow lines say, gently, that the world is bigger than his pain and that he is not asked to run it. There is relief in that. A person carrying a hospital waiting-room kind of winter can set down the idea that everything depends on figuring it out.
People in the ancient Mediterranean did not sail in winter if they could help it, and the New Testament knows it. In Acts 27 the centurion and the ship’s owner chose to push on from Fair Havens even though the season was dangerous, and the result was a fourteen-day storm and a wreck on Malta. Paul had warned them. After the wreck, the travelers waited out the cold months on the island, and Acts 28:11 says they left after three months on a ship that had spent the winter there. Meanwhile Paul tells Titus that he has decided to winter at Nicopolis (Titus 3:12), and writes to Timothy to come before winter (2 Timothy 4:21).
None of this is a spiritual metaphor. It is plain practical sense inside the Bible itself. Some seasons close the roads, and the wise thing is to stay in port. If winter has brought you a stretch where you cannot do what you used to, because of health, money, family needs or an actual blizzard, waiting is not failure. Paul was one of the busiest people in history and still spent whole winters in one place.
Tucked into the list of David’s mighty men is a single line about Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada. He went down and killed a lion inside a pit on a day when snow had fallen (2 Samuel 23:20). It is easy to skim past. But slow down. A lion trapped in a pit is dangerous in any weather. Add slippery snow underfoot, cold hands and poor footing, and the story becomes almost absurd.
The writer includes the weather because it makes the courage specific. Benaiah did not wait for better conditions. Plenty of us postpone things until the right season, and winter makes a convenient excuse. A phone call to a relative we have not spoken to, an apology we have owed for years, a medical appointment we are avoiding. The text does not say Benaiah was fearless, only that he did it. Among the Bible verses about winter this one is rarely quoted, and perhaps that is why it lands. You do not have to feel brave, just step down into the pit with whatever grip you have.
Job, defending his own life, gives a quiet picture of what he had done in the cold months. If he had seen anyone perish for want of clothing, he says, or a needy person without covering, and if their loins had not blessed him because they were warmed with the fleece of his sheep, then let his own arm fall from the shoulder (Job 31:19-22). Isaiah 58:7 carries the same idea, asking whether the fast God wants includes sharing bread with the hungry and covering the naked when you see them.
Winter turns that kind of help from a good idea into an urgent one. A coat that sits in the back of your closet might keep a stranger from a dangerous night. A casserole at the door of an elderly neighbor, a ride to the doctor on an icy morning, a shoveled sidewalk without being asked. Churches often run coat drives and warming shelters, and giving to them is a direct way of living out these verses. If you ever see someone outside in dangerous cold who seems confused or unable to move, call emergency services rather than trying to manage it alone.
The Song of Solomon has the most hopeful winter line in the Bible. The beloved says to come away, because the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth (Song of Solomon 2:11-12). It was written as a love poem, not a promise about weather or a doctrine, but it captures something true. Winter does end. The ground that looked dead was holding its breath.
There is also a sober side. Jesus said that because lawlessness increases, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). That cold does not come with a forecast. A person can have a perfectly mild December and a frozen inner life, or the other way around. Some people also find that the short, dark days weigh on their mood in a way that is more than ordinary tiredness. If that is you, it is wise to see a doctor and not simply push through, and you can still pray the Psalms while you do. Read this page slowly, let the verses do their work in the cold months, and keep your eyes open for the first small sign of green.
Keep exploring with these related pages: Bible Verses For Faith in God, Bible Verses For Peace and Strength, Bible Verses About Calling, Bible Verses About Hard Times, Bible Verses For Overcoming Fear, Bible Verses For Motherhood, Bible Verses About the Holy Spirit, Bible Verses About Prayer and Healing, Bible Verses For Prayer and Peace, Bible Verses For Forgiving Others and Bible Verses For Love and Marriage.
To study these verses in more depth, try Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway and Bible Hub.
The Bible presents winter as one of the seasons God set in place and promised to keep (Genesis 8:22; Psalms 74:17). Snow and frost are described as his work: he gives snow like wool and scatters frost like ashes, and when he sends his word the ice melts (Psalms 147:16-18).
This page brings together 9 King James Version references about winter, drawn from 6 different books of the Bible.
Genesis 8:22 is one of the verses about winter referenced in this collection, alongside Psalms 74:17.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including Genesis 8:22, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
Beyond the references highlighted on this page, winter appears throughout Scripture in books such as Genesis, Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Proverbs; this collection focuses on some of the clearest examples.
