Scripture describes good friends as those who sharpen and improve each other, not merely those who are pleasant to be around. This page gathers verified verses on good friends.
Every verse below is drawn from a verified King James Version text.
But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
Isaiah 41:8
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
James 2:23
And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;
Luke 11:5
For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?
Luke 11:6
I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
Luke 11:8
Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.
Mark 5:19
Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof:
Luke 7:6
The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
Luke 7:34
These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
John 11:11
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
Job 2:11
Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
Micah 7:5
I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.
Psalms 35:14
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
Psalms 88:18
Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.
Genesis 26:26
And Azariah the son of Nathan was over the officers: and Zabud the son of Nathan was principal officer, and the king’s friend:
1 Kings 4:5
But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Matthew 20:13
Nevertheless Haman refrained himself: and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife.
Esther 5:10
Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and to morrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made.
Esther 5:14
And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends every thing that had befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.
Esther 6:13
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
Jeremiah 19:9
All verses are quoted from the King James Version (KJV), a public-domain translation.
Proverbs 27:17’s image of iron sharpening iron describes good friendship as mutually improving, not merely comfortable.
This connects to a pattern found throughout Bible Verses About Good Friends.
If this speaks to your current situation, you may also want to read Bible Verses For Healthy Relationships or Bible Verses For Spiritual Healing, both of which touch on related ground.
Every verse on this page is drawn from the King James Version, a public-domain translation available in full at Blue Letter Bible for anyone who wants to study the wider context.
This is one of the reasons Bible Verses About Good Friends continue to matter to readers.
If you lead a small group or Bible study, Bible Verses About Good Friends can serve as a starting point for discussion, since each verse invites a natural follow-up question about how it applies practically.
Praying through Bible Verses About Good Friends slowly, pausing after each verse, is a different practice than simply reading them, and many readers find it changes how the words are received.
Many readers find it helpful to read through Bible Verses About Good Friends slowly, one verse at a time, rather than all at once, allowing each to settle before moving to the next.
Consider keeping a small journal specifically for Bible Verses About Good Friends, noting which verse stood out on a given day and why, since the same verse often speaks differently depending on what you are facing.
Memorizing even one or two verses from Bible Verses About Good Friends can make them available in a moment when you do not have a Bible or this page nearby, which is often exactly when they matter most.
Sharing a specific verse from Bible Verses About Good Friends with someone going through a similar season is one of the simplest ways this collection has been used by other readers.
For related reading, you may also find Bible Verses About God's Presence and Bible Verses About Anxiety helpful.
Some readers also return to Bible Verses About Worship or Bible Verses About Protection for Family alongside this page.
If you are exploring related themes, Bible Verses About Peace and Fear and Bible Verses About Wisdom and Understanding are worth a look.
It can help to resist the urge to read through all twenty verses in Bible Verses About Good Friends in one sitting. Scripture written centuries apart, in different circumstances, by different authors, tends to reward slower reading. Try picking just two or three verses at a time, reading each one twice, and sitting with it for a moment before moving on. You may notice a detail on the second reading that you missed on the first.
Every verse gathered in Bible Verses About Good Friends was originally written as part of a larger passage, letter, or narrative. Reading a single verse on its own is genuinely useful, but if one particular verse stands out to you, it is worth taking a few extra minutes to read the surrounding chapter. Context rarely changes what a verse means, but it often deepens it.
Some readers use Bible Verses About Good Friends purely as a reference, scanning for a specific verse. Others treat it as a starting point for prayer, reading one verse and then praying it back to God in their own words. Neither approach is more correct than the other; what matters is that the verse actually gets read, not just located.
Bookmark this page if Bible Verses About Good Friends speaks to something you are currently facing. Verses that do not mean much to you today may become exactly what you need on a harder day next month. Scripture tends to work this way — the same words landing differently depending on where you are when you read them.
Consider reading through Bible Verses About Good Friends with a friend, spouse, or small group rather than only alone. Discussing which verse stood out to each person, and why, often surfaces angles you would not have noticed reading by yourself. Scripture read in community has a long history for exactly this reason.
Every verse in Bible Verses About Good Friends is drawn from the King James Version specifically, a translation completed in 1611 that remains one of the most widely quoted English versions of Scripture. Its language is more formal than modern translations, which some readers find adds a certain weight to familiar passages.
The twenty verses in Bible Verses About Good Friends were selected specifically because they speak directly to this subject, rather than only mentioning it in passing. Some are well known; others are easy to overlook on a first read through Scripture. Both kinds are included here because familiarity is not the same as relevance — a lesser-known verse can sometimes say exactly what a well-known one does not.
There is no required order for working through Bible Verses About Good Friends. Some readers start at the top and read straight through; others scroll until one verse catches their attention and start there instead. Both approaches work equally well, since each verse stands on its own even outside the sequence it is presented in.
Not every verse in Bible Verses About Good Friends will land the same way on a first read. Scripture written thousands of years ago, in a very different culture, occasionally uses language or imagery that takes a moment to connect with a modern situation. If a particular verse feels unclear, reading it again after a day or two, or alongside a study Bible’s footnotes, often helps.
If you read Bible Verses About Good Friends in a physical Bible rather than only on this page, consider marking the verses that stand out with a pencil, highlighter, or a note in a Bible app. Building a personal record of which verses have mattered to you, and when, turns a one-time reading into something you can return to years later.
If you found Bible Verses About Good Friends through a search for something specific, it is worth bookmarking this page rather than relying on finding it again the same way. Search results change, but a saved page stays put, and Scripture on this particular subject tends to be needed more than once, not only in the moment you first went looking for it.
If Bible Verses About Good Friends has been useful to you, consider passing the link along to someone else who might need it. Many readers first find a specific verse collection like this one because someone shared it with them directly, rather than through a search engine, and that simple act of sharing is often what makes a page like this genuinely useful rather than just accurate.
Scripture collections like Bible Verses About Good Friends work best as a returning place, not a one-time stop. The verses here will still be accurate and still be relevant the next time you need them, whether that is tomorrow or a year from now, which is precisely the point of gathering them together in one place rather than leaving you to search for each one individually.
If this is the first time you have looked specifically for Bible Verses About Good Friends, welcome. You do not need any particular background or prior Bible knowledge to read what is here — each verse is presented with its reference so you can look up more context whenever you want it.
Search engines and browser history are not always reliable ways to find a page again later. If Bible Verses About Good Friends has been useful today, it may be worth saving the link directly, since the same collection tends to be useful again in a future season you cannot predict right now.
Readers exploring this topic may also value Bible Verses About Family Love or Bible Verses For Good Friends.
If you want to compare these verses across other translations, Bible Gateway offers a free side-by-side reading tool.
For verse-by-verse commentary and cross-references, Bible Hub is a genuinely useful free resource.
Good friends, biblically, are those who sharpen and improve each other, not merely those who are easy to be around.