These Bible verses for healing the sick focus on how Jesus cared for people who were unwell and how he sent his followers to do the same. They are helpful when you are praying for a friend, visiting someone in hospital, or serving in a church care ministry. Each one shows God’s compassion reaching people at their weakest.
Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
Matthew 10:8 (KJV)
Jesus sends his disciples to heal the sick, reminding them that what they freely received they should freely give.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
Luke 9:2 (KJV)
The twelve were sent out with two tasks, to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Mark 16:17-18 (KJV)
Jesus says believers will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
James 5:16 (KJV)
Believers are urged to confess their faults and pray for one another so that they may be healed.
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Matthew 25:36 (KJV)
Jesus counts visiting the sick as a kindness done to him personally.
Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
Acts 3:6 (KJV)
Peter has no money to give a lame man, but offers healing in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him. So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:
Acts 28:8-9 (KJV)
Paul prays and lays hands on a sick father, and others with diseases then come and are healed.
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
Luke 4:40 (KJV)
At sunset people bring their sick to Jesus, and he lays hands on every one and heals them.
And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
Matthew 14:14 (KJV)
Moved with compassion for the crowd, Jesus healed their sick, showing the heart behind every healing.
Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
John 11:3-4 (KJV)
Mary and Martha send word that Lazarus is sick, and Jesus says the illness will bring glory to God.
And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Matthew 8:2-3 (KJV)
When a leper asks whether Jesus is willing, he touches him and answers, I will; be thou clean.
Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
Psalms 41:1-3 (KJV)
God blesses those who consider the poor and promises to strengthen the sick on their bed.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)
Isaiah foretells the suffering servant whose wounds bring peace and healing to others.
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
1 Peter 2:24 (KJV)
Peter says Christ bore our sins on the cross, and by his stripes we were healed.
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
Matthew 9:35-36 (KJV)
Jesus heals every sickness and is moved with compassion for people who are weary and scattered.
Jesus rarely healed without also showing personal care. Matthew 14:14 says he was moved with compassion before he healed the crowd. When you pray for someone who is sick, begin with that same compassion: listen to what they are going through, ask how they would like you to pray, and use a verse like James 5:16 as your guide.
Matthew 25:36 treats visiting the sick as serving Christ himself. A short visit, a meal, a card with a written verse, or a ride to an appointment can all carry these promises into real life. Reading Psalms 41:1-3 with someone reminds them that God strengthens people on their sickbed.
Praying for healing should sit alongside good medical care, not replace it. Encourage the person to keep seeing their doctors, and pray for wisdom for those treating them. Leave the outcome with God, knowing he hears every prayer and never stops caring for the one you love.
Matthew 4:23 is worth praying by naming the specific person who is sick, asking for the same compassion and healing shown throughout the Gospels.
For a related angle, see Bible Verses About Emotional Healing or Bible Verses About God's Timing.
All Scripture here is quoted from the King James Version, which you can read in full at Blue Letter Bible.
Bible Verses For Anxiety and Bible Verses For Worship explore related themes.
If you want to keep reading, Bible Verses For Protection for Family and Bible Verses For Peace and Fear sit close to this topic.
Some of the same ground is covered in Bible Verses For Wisdom and Understanding and Bible Verses For Family Love.
Readers of this page often go on to Bible Verses For Miracles or Bible Verses About Miracles.
To see how other translations render these lines, look them up on Bible Gateway.
For word studies and cross-references, Bible Hub is a helpful next step.
Return to this verse as you continue praying for that person, alongside the medical care they are receiving.
These verses were never meant to sit on a page as decoration \u2014 they’re meant to shape how you actually respond the next time you’re the one caring for someone sick and running low on your own energy.
You don’t need polished or formal language for it \u2014 an honest, plainly worded sentence is enough, something as simple as telling God directly for strength to keep caring for them without running completely empty yourself.
In Mark 5:21-43, Jairus begged Jesus to come heal his dying daughter, but on the way a woman with a long illness interrupted them, and by the time they reached the house the girl had died. Jesus went in anyway, took her by the hand, and said, Talitha cumi, meaning, Damsel, arise. This story matters for anyone reading Bible Verses For Healing the Sick who feels their situation was delayed by someone else’s need. Jesus did not treat the interruption as a distraction; he cared for both, showing his attention was never limited to only one person at a time.
Mark 3:1-6 describes a man with a withered hand sitting in the synagogue while religious leaders watched to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath, hoping to accuse him. Jesus asked whether it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, then told the man to stretch out his hand, and it was restored. This account is often searched alongside Bible Verses For Healing the Sick because it shows Jesus healing openly, without hiding from criticism or waiting for a more convenient day.
In 2 Kings 4:18-37, a woman who had shown Elisha kindness found her young son suddenly collapse with a severe headache, and he died in her lap by noon. She rode straight to Elisha without stopping to explain the full situation to her husband, and Elisha stretched himself over the child until warmth returned and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Her urgency is worth remembering when reading Bible Verses For Healing the Sick during a frightening emergency: she did not wait for a convenient moment, she acted the same hour her son collapsed.
Not everyone in Scripture was healed instantly. Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach and frequent infirmities in 1 Timothy 5:23, and in 2 Timothy 4:20 Paul says he left Trophimus at Miletum sick, without recording any miracle that followed. These verses sit uneasily beside Bible Verses For Healing the Sick that describe instant recovery, yet they belong in the same Bible. Ongoing illness among faithful believers was not treated as failure or a lack of standing with God, and neither is it evidence of failure now.
Some of the hardest praying happens before any diagnosis arrives, when tests are ordered but answers are still days away. It can feel dishonest to pray for healing from a condition nobody has named. Try praying instead for the doctors reading the results, for patience in the waiting room, and for peace that does not depend on knowing yet. Bible Verses For Healing the Sick can still be read during this stage, not as a guarantee of good news, but as a reminder that God is already present in whatever the results eventually say.
Anyone who regularly visits hospitals, whether as a chaplain, a volunteer, or simply a caring neighbor, needs a few short verses ready before walking room to room. This list works well alongside other healing verses already kept on a card or a phone.
Lord, before I walk through that door, quiet my own nerves so they do not become one more thing to manage. Give me ordinary words instead of a performance, and let my presence say more than anything clever I might try to say. If there is fear in that room, let me sit with it instead of rushing to fix it. Remind me that visiting the sick, as Matthew 25:36 says, is something you count as done to you personally, the same compassion these Bible Verses For Healing the Sick keep pointing back to.
Some assume that unanswered prayer for healing means the sick person, or the one praying for them, simply did not believe hard enough. Paul himself asked three times for a thorn in the flesh to be removed and was told grace was sufficient instead, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9. Reading Bible Verses For Healing the Sick with that passage nearby guards against turning illness into a referendum on someone’s faith. God’s answer to prayer sometimes looks like strength to endure rather than a cure, and that answer is not a smaller or lesser one.
Faith and simple neighborliness work well together when someone nearby is unwell, and small actions often matter more than any single healing verse you might quote.
Words meant to encourage can sometimes land heavily on someone who is exhausted and in pain. Avoid promising a specific outcome, such as saying they will definitely be healed by a certain date, since that promise is not yours to make. Instead of quoting these verses as a command to have more faith, offer them as a shared hope you are holding alongside the person, not a test they need to pass. Simple sentences work best: I am praying for you, I am glad you are still here, or I brought you something small.
James 5:14 tells the sick to call for the elders of the church, an idea many discover while searching Bible Verses For Healing the Sick, which assumes a church ready to respond. A small care ministry does not need a large budget, only a short list of names, a rotation for meals and rides, and someone willing to send a weekly reminder. Start with two or three willing people rather than waiting for a perfect plan, and let the ministry grow as fast as your church can sustain it well.
Attention for the sick often peaks in the first week and fades soon after, even though chronic illness can last for years. A church that keeps reading Bible Verses For Healing the Sick only during a crisis will miss the person still struggling months later. Set a simple reminder to check on someone again a month after their diagnosis, and again after that, since long faithfulness matters more than one large gesture. A short note that says I have not forgotten you can carry weight that no single scripture post-card ever could.
A short pause to reflect can keep this kind of caregiving from quietly draining someone dry, as anyone who leans on these healing verses each week already knows.
Most people remember the long speeches of Job’s friends and the mistakes inside them. Fewer remember how they began. When Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar heard about his losses, they traveled to find him, wept aloud at the sight of him, and then “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).
That week of quiet may have been the best thing they ever did for him. It was only when they opened their mouths and began explaining his suffering that the trouble started. If you are visiting someone who is seriously ill, the lesson is hard but freeing. You do not have to produce an answer. You do not have to find the reason, defend God, or make the room feel lighter. Sitting on the ground beside a hurting person is already a gift, and it costs mostly time and the willingness to be uncomfortable.
Ask yourself before you go in what you are tempted to say. Is it a comfort for them, or a way of calming your own nerves? Then take a short verse in your pocket, let the patient lead, and speak only when something true and kind actually rises. Silence, a hand on the blanket, a refilled water cup. Job’s friends got the start of the visit right, and that is the part worth copying.
Jesus told the story of the Samaritan to answer a lawyer’s question about who counts as a neighbor. A man had been beaten and left half dead on the Jericho road. A priest and a Levite saw him and passed by on the other side. Then a Samaritan “had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:33-34).
Look at how many verbs there are. He saw, went, bandaged, lifted, carried, paid. And the next morning he handed over two silver coins to the innkeeper and promised to repay whatever more was spent. This was not a quick act of kindness before hurrying to his own appointments. It was a plan, with a budget and a return date. Real care for the sick usually looks like that, less a single moving moment and more a series of small, tiring decisions.
If someone in your church or street is recovering from surgery or managing a long illness, the story suggests thinking past the first week. Who drives them to follow-up visits in month two? Who notices the unopened mail? Compassion that stops at the bandage has done something good, but the Samaritan shows what it looks like to carry it all the way to the inn and then keep paying the bill.
Matthew 8:14-15 is easy to skim. Jesus enters Peter’s house in Capernaum and finds his wife’s mother lying in bed with a fever. He touches her hand, the fever leaves, “and she arose, and ministered unto them.” That is the whole scene, and yet there are small things in it worth noticing. Nobody had to beg. Jesus saw her, took the initiative, and used a simple touch.
Some readers wince at the ending, as if a woman just healed was sent straight to the kitchen. Read it again. The verb is the same one used elsewhere of serving and ministering, and it is the verb the Gospels apply to Jesus Himself. She was not drafted into housework; she got up and gave herself freely to the people in her home, as someone made whole tends to do. Strength was handed back to her, and she spent it on others.
That is a useful picture for those caring for the sick. Healing, when it comes, is meant to be spent on something, whether that is a cooked meal, a visit, or a long-delayed phone call. And for the recovering, a gentle caution: do not rush back into serving everyone before your body is truly ready. She arose when the fever left her, not a day before. Rest is part of getting well.
In Philippians 2:27 Paul writes about a friend named Epaphroditus, a messenger the church at Philippi had sent with a gift to support him in prison. Somewhere along the way Epaphroditus fell gravely ill. Paul says plainly, “For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.”
This is a rare moment where an apostle admits his own fear. Paul had healed others, yet here he does not simply command his friend well. He calls the recovery mercy, and he says it spared him as well, because losing Epaphroditus on top of his imprisonment would have been sorrow piled on sorrow. Healing is described as a kindness he did not assume was owed. There is humility in that, and an honesty about how much he loved the man.
Epaphroditus himself was distressed because the Philippians had heard he was sick, and he worried about their worry (Philippians 2:26). Many patients know that exact burden, the strain of managing everyone else’s feelings from a hospital bed. If you are the one who is ill, you are allowed to let others carry some of that. And if you are the one at a distance, a short, warm note saying you are praying, without demanding a reply, may be exactly the kindness he would have been glad to receive.
If you want to keep going with this theme, try Bible Verses for Healing Sick, Bible Verses About Healing the Sick, Bible Verses For Healing and Faith, Bible Verses For Hope and Healing and Bible Verses For Prayer for Healing.
For deeper study, Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools are all free to use.
Jesus rarely healed without also showing personal care. Matthew 14:14 says he was moved with compassion before he healed the crowd.
This page brings together 16 King James Version references about healing the Sick, drawn from 11 different books of the Bible.
These healing the Sick verses are drawn from books including Matthew, James, Psalms, Mark, 2 Kings, among others.
Yes. The verses about healing the Sick gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Psalms 41:1 and Matthew 14:14.
Matthew 14:14 is one of the verses about healing the Sick referenced in this collection, alongside James 5:16.
