These Bible verses for farewell moments are meant to be written in a card, spoken at a going-away gathering, or prayed over someone as they leave for a new town, school, job or ministry. Each one offers a blessing, a promise of God’s presence, or a simple reminder that distance does not end love.
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (KJV)
This ancient blessing asks the Lord to keep, shine upon and give peace, which makes a gentle send-off prayer.
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Deuteronomy 31:6 (KJV)
Moses tells Israel to be strong because God will not fail or forsake them, a fitting word for anyone moving on.
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 1:9 (KJV)
Spoken to Joshua as he stepped into a new role, this verse promises God’s presence wherever the traveler goes.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Psalms 121:7-8 (KJV)
A favorite for travelers, it asks the Lord to preserve their going out and coming in from this time forth.
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
Genesis 28:15 (KJV)
God promised Jacob, leaving home for a distant land, that he would keep him everywhere and bring him back.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isaiah 41:10 (KJV)
Here God tells the fearful not to be dismayed, because he will strengthen, help and uphold them.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Philippians 1:3-6 (KJV)
Write these lines in a card to tell a departing friend you thank God whenever you remember them.
Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
2 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)
Paul’s farewell asks friends to be comforted and live in peace, a warm closing line for any goodbye.
And Mizpah; for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.
Genesis 31:49 (KJV)
Many friends share the Mizpah verse as a prayer that God will watch between them while they are apart.
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Romans 15:13 (KJV)
Paul prays that the God of hope would fill his readers with joy and peace, a lovely wish for a new chapter.
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.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (KJV)
Someone stepping into the unknown can lean on the promise that God will direct the paths of those who trust him.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Jeremiah 29:11 (KJV)
God’s words to exiles far from home speak of thoughts of peace and an expected end.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Isaiah 43:2 (KJV)
Waters and fire will not overwhelm those God is with, an encouragement for a hard transition ahead.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
Psalms 139:9-10 (KJV)
Even at the uttermost parts of the sea, God’s hand will lead and hold the one who goes.
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21 (KJV)
This praise to God who does exceedingly abundantly above all we ask sends someone off with hope.
Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
2 Thessalonians 3:16 (KJV)
Paul prays that the Lord of peace would give peace always by all means, and be with them all.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
Jude 1:24-25 (KJV)
This closing praise trusts God to keep the traveler from falling and present them faultless with joy.
A farewell card is the easiest place to start. Choose one verse that fits the person, such as Joshua 1:9 for someone facing a big move or Philippians 1:3 for a coworker you will miss, and add a line about what they have meant to you. Short passages like Numbers 6:24-26 or 2 Thessalonians 3:16 also work well engraved on a small gift.
At a going-away party or church service, invite a friend to read Psalms 121:7-8 and then pray for the person by name. Many groups gather around the one leaving, rest a hand on their shoulder, and ask God to keep their going out and coming in. It gives the moment weight without making it heavy.
After they leave, keep the connection going. Sending a verse such as Romans 15:13 or Isaiah 41:10 in a message during their first hard week can mean a great deal, and praying Genesis 31:49 regularly keeps them in your heart even when they are far away.
Read the Bible slowly and you will notice how many goodbyes it records, and how few of them are tidy. Naomi kissed her daughters-in-law at a roadside and they wept aloud. Jonathan and David wept together until David could hardly stop. The elders from Ephesus fell on Paul’s neck and sorrowed most of all because he told them they would see his face no more. Nobody in these scenes pretends a parting is small.
That honesty matters when you are choosing words for someone who is leaving. A card that says only that everything happens for a reason can feel thin to a person who is packing boxes and dreading Monday. The best Bible Verses For Farewell do not hurry past the sadness. They name the leaving, and then they put God in the middle of it, as the one who stays present on both ends of the road.
So before you pick a verse, think about what the person is actually feeling. Some are excited and a little guilty about it. Some were pushed out and are angry. Some are simply tired. Scripture has words for each of them, and matching the verse to the person is most of the work.
Paul wrote to the church at Philippi from a prison cell, chained to a guard, with no idea whether he would walk out alive. The letter is full of warmth. He opens by saying, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you” (Philippians 1:3), and that single line is a model for anyone writing a goodbye. Notice what he does. He does not list the person’s duties or give advice. He remembers them, and he says thank you.
Then he adds a sentence that has steadied many people who are about to be separated: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Paul cannot stay and keep an eye on them. He hands them back to God and trusts the work to continue without him.
If a coworker, a pastor, a roommate or a friend from church is leaving, this passage gives you a pattern worth copying. Write down two or three real memories, say thank you for them, and then tell the person you believe God is not finished with them. Most people keep a note like that for years, and it costs you ten minutes at a kitchen table.
Both of these verses were spoken in the shadow of a handoff. Moses, old and told he would not cross the Jordan, gathers Israel and says, “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Not long after, God speaks nearly the same words to Joshua, who now has to lead people he did not recruit into a land he has never lived in.
That is why these two fit a graduate, a missionary family or a friend taking a job three states away. The promise is not that the road will be easy. It is that “the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9), including to places you cannot picture yet. A person standing in an empty apartment with a lease in another city needs exactly that kind of sentence.
When you use Bible Verses For Farewell like these, say a little about the setting so the person hears them as a promise and not a slogan. Moses was saying goodbye while handing the future to someone else. Telling a friend that story, even in two sentences, helps the verse land where it belongs.
Genesis 28 is a strange place to find a blessing. Jacob has deceived his brother and his father, and he is running north with only a walking staff and a long head start on Esau’s anger. He lies down in the open country, uses a stone for a pillow, and dreams of a ladder reaching up to heaven. In that dream God says, “Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land” (Genesis 28:15).
What stands out is the timing. Jacob has not cleaned up his life. He has not even asked for help. The promise comes first, and it covers every place he will go. When he wakes he says, “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not” (Genesis 28:16).
That last line is worth passing on to anyone leaving under a cloud, such as someone who was let go or who is moving after a failure. You do not have to pretend the departure was a victory. God met a runaway at a roadside, and he can meet your friend in a new town. Among the Bible Verses For Farewell, this passage is one of the kindest for people who feel they are leaving badly.
Almost everyone has seen it on a necklace or a card: “The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another” (Genesis 31:49). It sounds like a tender blessing between two people who love each other. Look at the story, though, and the picture changes. Laban and Jacob had been quarreling for twenty years over wages, flocks and daughters. They set up a heap of stones as a boundary marker and called the place Mizpah, which means watchtower.
So the original speakers were not sentimental friends. They were two wary men agreeing that God saw everything and would hold both of them to their word. That does not ruin the verse for a farewell. It actually makes it stronger. It says God is the one who keeps watch when we cannot, and that he sees what we do while we are out of each other’s sight.
If you want to use it, be honest about where it comes from. A line such as “this verse was spoken by two people who had every reason not to trust each other, and they still handed their separation to God” can be a wonderful thing to read aloud. It takes the verse seriously, and it turns a decorative phrase into a prayer that someone actually means.
Psalm 121 belongs to the Songs of Ascents, which Israelite families sang as they walked up to Jerusalem for the festivals. It opens with a question, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?” and answers it plainly: “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” The hills were not only scenery. They hid bandits and wild animals, and a traveler had good reason to look at them with worry.
The closing lines are the ones people carry into goodbyes: “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore” (Psalms 121:7-8). Going out and coming in covers the whole of ordinary life, leaving the house in the morning and returning at night, leaving a country and, one day, coming home.
This psalm works well when read aloud at a send-off. Ask someone with a steady voice to read it slowly, then let the room stay quiet for a few seconds before anyone speaks. If you are choosing from Bible Verses For Farewell for a card, these two verses fit the back of a small card nicely and read well even if the person has never opened a Bible. They are about trust, and trust is what travelers need most.
Some goodbyes are not choices. A friend moves for a spouse’s deployment, a family relocates after a layoff, an older neighbor goes into care. For those, Isaiah offers two sentences that refuse to promise an easy road. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).
Isaiah 43:2 is even more direct: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.” Notice the word when. God does not say if you ever face deep water. He assumes it, and he says he will be there in it. Israel was hearing this while heading toward exile, so the words were spoken to people who knew pain was coming.
These verses suit the person who is leaving with a heavy heart more than the person who is leaving with a suitcase and a grin. When you write them in a card, keep your own note short and kind. You do not have to explain the passage or fix the situation. Sometimes the best thing a friend can do is copy out a promise in careful handwriting, sign their name, and say they will call on Sunday.
Most people freeze at the blank card, so here is a simple way to start. First, write one true memory in a sentence or two: the day they covered your shift, the way they laughed at the back of the room, the casserole they dropped off without being asked. Specific beats grand every time.
Second, choose one verse and only one. Three verses crowded into a card read like a sermon handout, and the person will probably remember none of them. Pick the line that matches what you just wrote. If your memory is about courage, Joshua 1:9 fits. If it is about faithful friendship, Philippians 1:3 does. If it is about a hard season you shared, Isaiah 43:2 might be the one. Used this way, Bible Verses For Farewell become part of a personal message and not a replacement for one.
Third, end with something they can act on. “I will be praying for you on Tuesday mornings” is far better than “keep in touch.” People rarely keep in touch, but they do remember the promise of a specific prayer. Then keep it. Put a reminder on your phone for the first month, and send a short text each time. That small habit is often the part of a goodbye the other person values most.
Everyone assumes the leaving person is fine because they are the one with somewhere to go. Often they are not. They are the ones who must say a dozen goodbyes in a week, answer the same question about their plans forty times, and still manage a smile at the last potluck. Scripture does not ignore that side of things. Paul left Ephesus and the elders “wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him” (Acts 20:37). When he left Tyre, whole families walked him to the beach, knelt in the sand, and prayed (Acts 21:5).
If you are leaving, give yourself a little room to grieve and a little courage to say thank you out loud. Paul’s habit is a good one to borrow: before going, he reminded people what they had learned together and told them plainly that he was handing them over “to God, and to the word of his grace” (Acts 20:32).
You might also choose your own verse for the road. Many people pick Proverbs 3:5-6, “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.” Others tape Psalms 139:9-10 inside a suitcase, since it says that even if we take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, God’s hand will lead us there. Bible Verses For Farewell are not only for the people left behind.
This verse shows up on more going-away cards than any other, and it is worth a careful look. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). Jeremiah wrote it in a letter to people who had been dragged to Babylon. The verses just before it tell them to build houses, plant gardens and seek the peace of the city, because they would be there for seventy years.
That context changes the tone. God is not promising a quick promotion or a perfect new apartment. He is telling a displaced people that he has not lost track of them and that their long, unwanted wait has an end he is steering toward. For someone leaving a place they love, that is more honest and, in my experience, more helpful than a promise of instant success.
When you give this verse to a friend, you can mention a piece of that background in a sentence. Something like “God wrote this to people who did not want to move, and he told them to settle in and trust him” gives it weight. It also keeps the verse from sounding like a fortune cookie. Pair it with Proverbs 3:5-6 if you like, since both are about trusting a plan you cannot see all of.
Paul ends 2 Corinthians with a line that uses the very word we have been circling: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you” (2 Corinthians 13:11). The old English farewell meant fare well, travel well, and Paul pairs it with a request that people stay united and keep the peace once he is gone.
Other closing blessings are just as useful: “Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all” (2 Thessalonians 3:16), and the lovely doxology of Jude, which speaks of the one “that is able to keep you from falling.” Any of these can be read at the end of a gathering, right before the hugs begin.
If you are asked to pray, you do not need fancy language. Something like this is enough: Lord, you know this person and you know the road ahead. Thank you for the years we shared. Go with them into every new room, give them friends quickly, and let them feel you near on the first lonely night. Keep us connected, and bring us back together if it is your will. Amen. Short prayers said sincerely are what people remember, and the right Bible Verses For Farewell, chosen with some care, will stay with them long after the boxes are unpacked.
Related topics on this site include Bible Verses For Encouragement, Bible Verses For Spiritual Growth, Bible Verses For Healthy Relationships, Bible Verses For God's Purpose, Bible Verses For Seeking God, Bible Verses For Faith During Trials, Bible Verses About God's Timing, Bible Verses For Stress, Bible Verses For Loss, Bible Verses For Gratitude and Bible Verses About Love and Marriage.
If you want to dig further, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools are good places to start.
A farewell card is the easiest place to start. Choose one verse that fits the person, such as Joshua 1:9 for someone facing a big move or Philippians 1:3 for a coworker you will miss, and add a line about what they have meant to you.
This page brings together 8 King James Version references about farewell, drawn from 8 different books of the Bible.
Beyond the references highlighted on this page, farewell appears throughout Scripture in books such as Joshua, Philippians, Numbers, 2 Thessalonians, Psalms; this collection focuses on some of the clearest examples.
These farewell verses are drawn from books including Joshua, Philippians, Numbers, 2 Thessalonians, Psalms, among others.
Yes. The verses about farewell gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Joshua 1:9 and Philippians 1:3.
